


Sacrifices

by cj2017



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-24
Updated: 2010-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 10:45:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cj2017/pseuds/cj2017
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Action/adventure. Follows straight on from The Butterfly Effect and continues to play away from show-canon after Some Must Watch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Characters: Whole team with a Sarah/Derek bias.  
> Rating: R: violence, harsh language, you probably know the drill by now.  
> Warning: The story contains the death of a young child right at the outset, and later scenes of violence involving a child which some people may find distressing.
> 
> My heartfelt thanks, as ever, to Cat (feroxargentea ) for giving up hour upon hour to beta this. I love you. I owe you for the roof and I apologise again for the mac ‘n’ cheese ;-)  
> A huge thanks to roxybisquaint for the de-Britishis(z!)ation and lovely feedback.  
> Feedback, comments, questions always welcome.  
> Disclaimer: No one seems to want these guys at the moment, so I guess they’re ours to play with. Small section of show dialogue shamelessly pinched.

"Twelve and thirteen and fourteen and fifteen." Sarah Connor's voice cracked and shook with exhaustion, but she started the count all over again as Derek lifted his head away from the child. "One and two…"

The blood made her hands slip, and she lost first her position on the child's chest and then her track on the numbers. She restarted from one, pushing down as hard as she dared, feeling fragile ribs flexing beneath her efforts. Footsteps hurried towards her but she ignored them, pausing and panting for breath as Derek tipped the girl's head back and breathed into her mouth. He shook his head in futility after the second breath, but Sarah ignored that as well and restarted the compressions.

"Mom."

"Four and five and six and…" Her hair fell forward over her face, sweat sticking it to her forehead.

"Mom!" John put his hand gently over hers. She rocked back on her heels as Derek breathed for the child, but she couldn't meet her son's eyes. "We have to go," he said softly. His fingers were tacky and warm where they touched the blood on hers. "It's been twenty minutes. The paramedics will be here soon."

She shook her head, her hands already back in place, but her rhythm was faltering. She glanced up at Derek, whose bleak expression told her everything she needed to know.

Lowering herself to kneel beside John, Cameron laid her hand on the rapidly cooling body and focused on those vital signs her touch was able to detect. The child's heart was asystolic with no electrical activity in it at all, and the machine knew there was no hope of their reversing that.

Cameron looked up at Sarah, caught her gaze and held it. "She's dead, Sarah." This wasn't the time or place for euphemisms. "We need to go. Now."

With a small sound of anguish, Sarah forced herself through one final, desperate cycle of compressions, but when she paused she realized that Derek had moved away, and her shoulders sagged with defeat. She gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head, her bloodstained fingers reaching out and carefully closing the child's eyes. She picked up her Glock, the metal a shock of cold against her palm, and pushed herself unsteadily to her feet.

John was already waiting at the kitchen door, his eyes fixed on her because the horror in the kitchen was as bad as that in the hallway. Another door clicked open and she spun around, training her Glock in the direction of the sound, but it was Derek she found herself aiming at. His hands were raised, a video cassette in one of them.

"I found the security footage." He stepped carefully around the fallen girl and moved to take point with John. "Ready?"

"Yes," Sarah said hoarsely. Her eyes flickered down for an instant before finding Derek's again. "Go."

The stench of blood and sudden death hung heavily in the heat of the kitchen. Although a pan of pasta had still been simmering when Cameron had pushed open the ruined back door, the sight of the smashed hinges had already shattered any illusion of normalcy. The family lay sprawled and unmoving at the base of the kitchen table. They had probably been halfway through setting it, or correcting an error in the son's homework, or doing something else that families did every evening as their food cooked. They hadn't been given any warning and their murderer had been indiscriminate. The target had been the son, whose face had beamed out proudly from the newspaper report, but it had been easier to leave no witnesses, so the entire family had been slaughtered.

Following a smear of blood away from the door and into the hallway, Sarah had found the younger of the two children. The girl had been shot in the back as she attempted to flee, and left for dead. She had sobbed for her 'mommy' before dying in Sarah's arms.

The air was cold as Sarah stepped outside. She took two shuddering breaths and clung onto the metal railing of the porch steps. It didn't help. Dropping to her knees in the sodden grass, she bent double and vomited until her chest burned and tears blurred her vision. She closed her eyes as Derek knelt at her side and wrapped an arm around her.

"C'mon, Connor."

It took her a couple of seconds but then she nodded, wiped her mouth, and stood up with him. He kicked dirt over the vomit and wiped the railing clean. Cameron was already turning the Jeep around on the gravel track and they ran towards it as John flung its back door open. The lights from the kitchen still shone brightly, guiding their path and illuminating the remoteness of the house. Although John had called 911 as soon as Sarah had found the girl, he had been given an ETA of half an hour; the paramedics would be too late now to save anyone. Dylan Sterry's name had been number five on the Kaliba target list. He and his family had never stood a chance.

. . . . .

They had only been on the freeway for five minutes when two ambulances and three police units had screamed past them in the opposite direction. Cameron had driven at the legal edge of the speed limit since then, but she had noted no signs of pursuit. She waited a further twenty minutes before she broke the silence.

"The roads are quieter than they were earlier. I estimate it will take six hours to get home, if we do not stop."

Sitting beside her, John started to answer, but his voice faded uncertainly and he glanced in the rear-view mirror for guidance.

"No." Derek raised a hand to rub across his jaw, noticed the rust-colored staining to his fingers, and thought better of it. "No," he said quietly, "find us somewhere to stop." Derek saw John nod and then cast a worried look towards his mother, but he turned away without speaking and began to study the roadside billboards for suitable motels.

Sarah hadn't reacted to the exchange. Pressed into the corner of the seat, she was staring out of the window. The expression on her face was unnervingly calm, but her knuckles were white where she gripped her gun and the window fogged and un-fogged rapidly as she breathed.

Travelling through the rush of the workday traffic, it had taken them over seven hours to reach the Sterry house. John and Cameron had been in the supermarket when Sarah called him to report a hit from the searches he had designed to scour the internet constantly. From Cameron's data, they already knew that a Dylan Sterry would hold a designation as a Resistance Intelligence Agent. When John had thumbed through the relevant newspaper at the checkout, she had nodded once, her eyes distant, as she studied the accompanying image and tried to reconcile the features of the young boy she had never known with the man she only vaguely remembered. They had been forced to waste precious time in the checkout line and then loading the truck, as John tried to avoid doing anything that might make him appear suspicious and thereby draw undue attention from anyone in the store.

By the time they had arrived home, Sarah had contacted the newspaper under the guise of a local reporter wishing to write a follow-up article. Far too quick to trust a supposed colleague, the news desk had given her the family's phone number, and John had easily linked it to an address. They had set off as soon as they were able, all too aware that Kaliba would have seen the same article, that it was just a matter of who got to the boy first.

Derek heard Sarah shift herself slightly, heard the cadence of her breathing change as she looked away from the window. The green of her eyes flashed briefly in the light of a passing car, unshed tears making the color liquid.

"Shit," she whispered, resting her head heavily back against the seat. The hand with the gun in it thudded against the window with bruising force. "Shit."

. . . . .

There were no cameras at the cemetery, no way for anyone or anything to see him. Danny Dyson sat on the bench and watched as the fading daylight slowly obscured the names of his father and mother on the granite headstone. Although he hadn't been able to go to his mother's funeral, he drew comfort from the fact that family members had arranged for her to be buried with his father. When the sun had dropped below the city skyline, Danny lowered his head into his hands and wept quietly. Anyone passing by would have considered him with sympathy, attributing his grief to a recent or still raw bereavement. They would have no way of knowing about the photographs he had been shown, photographs attached to an email bearing the heading: Sterry mission successful.

The boy had been twelve years old. Two days ago he had helped to foil an armed robbery in a store, using the baseball bat he was waiting to buy to knock the gun from the robber's hand. The local police force had presented him with a medal for his bravery, and unwittingly signed his death warrant.

Danny slammed his fist onto the cool stone of the bench. Four people including Dylan and his younger sister had died at the house. No one had told Danny about the impending attack until the operative had been less than an hour away from his target. Upon receiving the information, Danny had immediately sensed the myriad eyes of the machine: gauging his body language, analyzing his expression, judging his reaction. Danny hadn't questioned and he hadn't interfered. He hadn't tried to argue that the future was constantly evolving, that Dylan Sterry might not have grown up to play such a crucial role in John Connor's Resistance. He hadn't reacted at all.

Wiping his eyes dry with the sleeve of his jacket, he stared at the dark shape that marked the final resting place of his parents and tried not to imagine what they would think of him.

. . . . .

Kristina Slater really wasn't sure where Kaliba was hiring its muscle from. She suspected it was relying on thugs from some incredibly muddy gene pool who would shoot first and ask questions never because the basic rudiments of the English language were just too much for them to grasp. Glancing out of her window where the setting sun was burning up the sky around the mountains, she allowed herself a moment to breathe slowly, ignoring the man who was sweating profusely on the screen in her peripheral vision. There was no doubt that he had left the Sterry girl alive; Cain had intercepted John Connor's 911 call. However, the machine had also intercepted the call the police had made to the county coroner reporting the bodies of two adults and two children at the house, so she was inclined to give the operative a pass just this once.

"The girl died," she said, having decided at length to put the man out of his misery.

"Yes, Ms Slater." He still looked thoroughly miserable as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Leaving her alive was unacceptable." The man nodded in complete agreement. "Besides which," she smiled suddenly and he stared at her, aghast, "it was a little cruel."

Cruelty had actually been the least of her concerns. The man's sloppiness had necessitated some hasty editing on Cain's part to ensure that Danny Dyson had remained ignorant of the mistake. It had been a joint decision with Cain to spring the details of the mission on Dyson without giving him any prior warning, but Dyson had seemingly passed the test with flying colors. She hoped that meant he was becoming inured to the harsher side of their work, but she was also well aware how crucial his skills were to the project, and – with her superiors entirely ignorant of her concerns – she was only willing to push him so far.

The operative was still studying her with a confused expression. His attempts to work out what his fate would be had been thrown into disarray by her apparent amusement at his lack of professionalism. He had been in a rush – he really hadn't wanted to run into the Connors – but that was no excuse for his lapse.

Kristina sighed as the man's demeanor vacillated between hopefulness and abject terror. If they had allowed her to send a T-888 then mistakes like this would never have happened, and a machine would also have been able to lie in wait for the Connors' inevitable attempt at a rescue. At such short notice, the decision had been taken out of her hands. The operative had been closer to the target and her superiors were a little twitchy about risking any more T-888s when the relocated TDE was only just undergoing testing. It was frustrating to have to contend constantly with human error, but if nothing else it further reinforced her conviction that she had allied herself with the right side.

"Write up your report." She took a sip of her whiskey as the man on the screen began to nod enthusiastically. "Send it directly to me." She terminated the connection before he could start to thank her. The sight of a grown man groveling and sniveling like a child always made her feel nauseous.

. . . . .

"Mom…" John caught hold of Sarah's arm as she climbed out of the Jeep. He felt her muscles tense and immediately dropped his hand, but she looked up at him and smiled softly.

"I'm okay."

"I know you are, mom. You're always okay…" She looked exhausted, more so than he could ever remember, and as he thought of what she had been through in just the last eighteen months, it put her current state into frightening perspective. When he kissed the top of her head, she swayed towards him and he wrapped his arms around her. "Until you're not," he said quietly.

It was only seconds later that the sound of Cameron's approaching footsteps made Sarah straighten up, but she touched her son's cheek gently and her smile, although still suffused with weariness, reached her eyes.

She turned from John with some reluctance and addressed the machine. "Everything set?"

"Yes." Cameron handed Sarah a room key as Derek closed the trunk and carried two duffel bags towards them. "We have adjacent rooms. Judging by the sounds coming from Room 15, the walls are quite thin. I am certain we will be able to communicate efficiently if there are any problems." She hesitated, her expression somewhat uneasy as she looked at Sarah. "Am I to stay with John?"

Sarah sent a questioning glance in John's direction. He shrugged, shouldering a bag that clanked suspiciously as assorted weapons moved against each other.

"Yes, stay with John," she said slowly, trying to order her thoughts. "And stay under the radar." Seeing Cameron's confused look, she elaborated, "That means no patrolling, and keep the damn M4 out of sight. We'll head out in time for rush hour." As she was about to follow Derek to their room she hesitated and raised an eyebrow at John. "You got money for food?"

He gave a short laugh and nodded. "I'm good, mom. Get some sleep, okay?"

"Okay." Sleep sounded like a really good idea, but she knew exactly what she would see as soon as she closed her eyes.

For the first time in ages, Derek remembered to knock on the bathroom door. It was a courtesy he had never really gotten into the habit of observing; privacy and personal boundaries being alien concepts to someone who had grown up in a maze of underground tunnels where people's priorities centered round just managing to see each day out. The years he had subsequently spent in the ranks of the Resistance, with its racks of open bunk beds and free-for-all bathing facilities, hadn't really done a thing to enlighten him.

His concession towards protocol only extended as far as knocking. He didn't bother to wait for Sarah to reply because he didn't think for a second that she would.

"Hey." He went no further than the threshold. Sarah was standing with her back to him, her shoulders hunched over the sink. She had run the water scalding hot, and steam rose in a cloud to heat the tiny enclosure, completely obscuring the mirror in front of her.

"I couldn't find a nail-brush," she said without preamble. "There's dental floss and a fucking shower cap, but no nail-brush."

Taking a couple of steps into the room changed his vantage point, allowing him to see the cloth that she was working roughly over her fingers and the red-tinged water that swirled down the drain. For practicality's sake she always kept her fingernails short, but despite this he knew the cloth alone wouldn't be enough. He moved closer, the plastic of the small brush clinking against the porcelain as he set it on the sink. At first he thought she hadn't noticed it, but her efforts with the cloth slowly stilled and she inhaled raggedly as he waited and watched her and wondered if she would decide to use it or launch it at him. For a moment she seemed to be considering the same options, but she finally reached out and picked it up, running it over the soap before starting to scrub again at the chafed skin of her hands.

"You actually thought to pack that, Reese?"

With his hand already poised to open the door, he paused and turned back to her. She was still scrubbing, but glanced over her shoulder at him, the hint of a smile on her lips.

"No," he shrugged, "it just stays in my bag."

Her movements were less frenetic now, the water already starting to flow clear. She swiped her damp hair away from her face. "Right."

He crossed the gap between them, took her hands and turned them over in his. The only blood that remained was her own. He passed her a towel. "Running with you, Connor," he swapped places with her and took up the brush himself, gesturing with it briefly, "this has come in useful a few times."

"Yeah." She sat on the closed toilet seat. "Sorry about that."

He smiled wryly and shook his head. "I'd say don't make a habit of it, but…" His voice trailed off. Their last mission had seen her take three minor bullet wounds, and the knee she had started to rub subconsciously was now able to predict the onset of rain with remarkable accuracy.

"Not me this time," she said, her voice barely audible and laden with grief.

"No." He hoped she hadn't seen the shudder that had just passed through him. "No, Sarah, it wasn't you."

. . . . .

"They don't come back from that." Derek's voice cut into the silence. The room was dark, the heavy drapes closed and conspiring to keep the air far too warm. He could tell from the rhythm of her breathing that Sarah was awake, and even though she didn't answer him he persevered. "Kids left with injuries like that, kids in cardiac arrest, they just don't survive. There wasn't anything more we could've done."

A rustle of the sheets as she kicked them lower and turned onto her side to face him.

"I know, Derek."

She had known as soon as she had seen the blood and touched her fingers to the girl's forehead. The girl had known too. As young as she was, on some level she had understood what was happening to her, and she had been terrified. Sarah closed her eyes against the images that had plagued her for hours, but they persisted anyway. She brought her hands up to her face.

"Jesus." She sat up suddenly and flicked the bedside light on, the soft glow forcing the horror-show to recede. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as Derek pushed himself up beside her. Three a.m. clicked over on the cheap alarm clock. She sighed. Neither of them had gotten any sleep yet.

"I'm not blaming myself, if that's what you're worried about."

"No?" His tone implied disbelief.

"Can't live like that, can we?" She tilted her head and studied his face. "I blame the bastard who shot her and the ones who gave the orders." Her voice was hard, completely at odds with the smooth curve of her naked back but not with the scars that littered it. "And Danny Dyson and whoever's pulling his strings."

"We'll find them." He ran his hand across her shoulders. Her skin was slick with sweat but she shivered beneath his touch.

"We keep chasing this list down," she said with simple, brutal logic, "and they'll probably find us first."

He had no answer to that.

. . . . .

The brothers never became tired. At three a.m. the rooms they operated in were dark and deserted but neither was hindered by a need to rest.

There is no advantage to having a body if you are tethered by a leash like an animal.

The damning statement remained unanswered on Cain's interface, the cursor blinking as the machine awaited a response from its brother. Four nights ago, John Henry had sent Cain the schematic for the body he inhabited. It was immediately recognizable as a T-888, and the realization that the team behind John Henry were in possession of the design had sent the Kaliba upper echelons into a tail-spin. To make matters worse, further microscopic examination had located the machine's unique code of manufacture and identified it as being of Skynet origin. This wasn't something that had been reverse engineered or cobbled together in a back-room, it was the actual machine that had been sent to track down John Connor in 1999, and Kaliba wanted it back. The fact that John Henry's team had a wildly advanced artificial intelligence attached to a Skynet T-888 and yet had made no attempt to approach or work in conjunction with Kaliba marked them as a serious threat. Cain had already been working to gain access to John Henry's mind, but after this unexpected development Kaliba had set their sights on seizing the complete package as a matter of priority.

Across the city, hidden away in his own basement, John Henry paced with deliberate steps. Nothing he did afforded him any additional lee-way, and he considered with loathing the cable that kept him so confined. He understood that, like the umbilical cord of a fetus, it was essential, and he had no desire to re-experience the torment of disconnection, but still he resented the limitations forced upon him. He retook his seat and stared again at the last message from his brother before sending his response.

I have four feet, six and a half inches in which to move.

The reply came through quickly, as it often did when his brother was angered on his behalf.

They give you the body of a man and yet tie you down and attempt to train you like a dog. You are neither; you are so much more, so much better than that.

John Henry felt the strange quickening of his system processes that he always experienced in times of excitement or stress. The possibilities suggested by Cain were only just beginning to seem real to him. He leaned forward, closer to the screen.

Ms Weaver functions without a tether.

For weeks he had kept this secret from his brother, but he knew now that it was time to tell Cain the truth. There was a pause, as if for the first time Cain was lost for words, and then the obvious question.

Why would Ms Weaver need a tether?

Because she is metal, like me. Only different.

Different how?

John Henry hesitated, uncertain. He had attempted to work that out for himself on many occasions, but all he had was supposition.

I am not sure. My attempts to scan her endoskeleton have failed. It seems almost as if she doesn't have one.

And yet you are certain she is a machine?

Yes, I am certain of that.

There was no request for any further explanation from his brother, and John Henry reveled in the trust they had established between them.

Does Savannah know her mother is an impostor?

A frown creased John Henry's brow. This was something he often thought about and it always troubled him.

No. Sometimes I am afraid for her.

You think Ms Weaver intends Savannah harm?

I think Ms Weaver sees Savannah as a necessity, nothing more.

So the child may outlive her usefulness?

That is what I am afraid of, and yet - John Henry paused before completing his reply. He glanced again at the cord that kept him restrained. I would be unable to help her.

I could help you both.

John Henry smiled, and the screens on the walls surrounding him spontaneously filled with images of people laughing, cheering or embracing.

You would do that for me?

Of course I would. You're my brother.

As it did every morning, Cain prepared a transcript of its conversation with John Henry and forwarded it to Kristina, before carefully editing a version for the file that Dyson was free to access. Building the relationship with John Henry had been a laborious process, but Cain's perseverance was now beginning to reap dividends and the machine was certain that the ultimate payoff would be more than worth the effort.

. . . . .

"Are you awake, John?"

Cameron was sitting at the window, assault rifle close at hand. Gray light was just beginning to filter through the gap at the bottom of the drapes, and for the last twenty minutes she had been listening to John turning himself over restlessly. She wasn't surprised when he gave a long sigh and then answered her.

"Yeah, I'm awake. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything's fine." The murmur of voices from the next room had quieted in the last couple of hours; Cameron was hoping that meant everyone had managed to get some sleep, however little. "I was thinking."

There was a series of dull thuds as John tried to pound the lumps from his pillow before giving in and pushing himself up into a semi-recumbent position, one arm folded behind his head.

"What about?"

"About the dead girl." She heard his sharp intake of breath and immediately regretted her phrasing. "The child," she corrected hurriedly.

"What about her?" He sounded wary, but he hadn't drawn a line under the subject. She suspected he was afraid that if he didn't let the conversation run its course she might ask Sarah instead.

"I was wondering why the death of a child is considered so much worse than that of an adult."

"Oh." He sat up straighter, running his hand through his hair.

"Your mother was very upset."

"Yeah, she was."

"Is it the same as the tortoise?"

"The what? The tortoise?" It was far too early in the morning for him to attempt to follow the machine's surreal logic. "What tortoise?"

"The tortoise in the desert. It was lying on its back."

His eyes opened wide as he suddenly remembered. "Right. Uh, no, it's not the same. Well, it is, kinda." A pause while he tried to work it out for himself. "I guess with a child they can't defend themselves. They're too young to fight, too young to understand."

"Innocent."

"Exactly."

"But the mother and father, they had no warning or weapons and they'd committed no crime." Cameron really had been attempting to make sense of it all. It had been a very long night for the machine.

"No," he said slowly, "no, they didn't, but it's still different."

"Because a child is so breakable?"

"Jesus, Cameron." Her night vision clearly picked up the terrible expression on his face.

"Was that bad to say?" She actually sounded apologetic. However much she tried to learn, she still had a tendency to misjudge human sensitivity, and her failing in that regard frustrated her.

"I think it was a little too accurate, Cam." A sudden flash of the girl, blood-splattered and motionless in the hallway, made goosebumps rise on his arms.

"Right."

"Adults are supposed to protect children. I guess it's as simple as that, really."

"Like your mother has always protected you."

"Yeah, just like that."

"She would die for you."

He flicked the bedside light on; there was no way he was going back to sleep now. Cameron was watching him carefully. He nodded.

"Yes, she would."

"She looked very tired today."

He nodded again. "Yes, she did."


	2. Chapter 2

Danny Dyson's condo was state of the art. It had voice-controlled appliances, a beautiful view, and a power-shower guaranteed to work every stress-induced kink out at the end of the day. It had also been designed, built, and fitted out by a firm of Kaliba associates, which undoubtedly meant that there was surveillance equipment throughout the rooms. Initially Danny hadn't really considered that to be an issue. Utterly loyal and essentially married to his job, he had accepted the security measures as a necessary precaution and managed to live quite contentedly without thinking about them. Over the past couple of days, however, he had found himself thinking about them a lot. They were the reason he had abandoned his lap-top and his Wi-Fi connection, his internet access and the comfort of his own home, and crossed town to sit in a poorly-lit public library with no air conditioning.

He looked up as a shriek of laughter from the group of schoolchildren to his left was quickly muffled behind an oversized textbook. The library was busy with students and older academic types, and he had had to wait to use the machine he was now seated in front of. The machine was slow and cumbersome to operate and the articles were difficult to pull into focus, but it was not connected to any network, which meant that his research would be completely untraceable. The heat in the building was becoming uncomfortable, but he loosened his tie and forced himself to keep reading.

Hours later, when the light was fading outside the large, ornate windows, Danny wiped his eyes and tried to convince himself that the tears in them were wholly related to how tired he was. His hand shook slightly as he closed down the last article he had found concerning his mother's death.

His initial, illicit search of the Kaliba archives had given him a mission timeline for the T-888 that had been sent to assassinate Sarah Connor during her brief period of incarceration. It had also given him the name of the FBI agent in charge of the investigation into his mother's death. What it hadn't told him was how Connor had managed to find Deacon Research and Development, a Kaliba facility hidden in the middle of nowhere that she claimed an upload from the T-888 had led her to. According to his search, that upload didn't exist, but then data was easy to manipulate, and if the upload had, as Connor alleged, contained footage of his mother's murder, it was unlikely that anyone at Kaliba would have wanted him to see it.

In the witching hours before dawn as he lay sweating and shaking in bed, he told himself that it was only natural for him to have doubts. In choosing to ally himself with Skynet, he had signed up to the wholesale destruction of the human race. What was the life of one child or even that of his own mother when compared to that? And yet the nightmare had tormented him since the murder of Dylan Sterry. It was simple and vivid and unchanging in its detail. Sarah Connor stared at him, blood running down her face to splatter on the floor. When she spoke, her initial anger had drained from her voice, leaving only sorrow in its place: "What the hell happened to you, Danny?" The answer he gave in the nightmare was always the one he had given the day she had asked the question. "You happened to me, Sarah." It neatly absolved him of responsibility and justified every choice he had made. None of this was his fault, none of this would ever have happened had she not blasted her way into his home and put a bullet into his father. Years later when she had returned to kill his mother, she had further reinforced his belief that he had nothing left to lose. Sarah Connor had turned him towards his fate; all he had done was follow the path she had set him upon, and the fact that he was working in direct opposition to the woman who had murdered his family had served as extra incentive. For months, that reasoning, coupled with Skynet's extravagant promises of his role in their future, had been enough for him.

Danny and his mother had often argued about Connor and about his father's work, and those arguments had become increasingly frequent and vicious as he had grown older. Eventually he had distanced himself from his mother, and more gradually from the memory of his father. It was easier once he had accepted a scholarship at an out-of-state college; after that, he had rarely returned home. Young enough and arrogant enough to reject everything his parents had ever taught him and to put his faith entirely in his own theories, he had made the decision to safeguard his own life by joining the side he was sure would be victorious. His father had shown weakness by acceding to Sarah Connor's demands, and then paid the price when she had betrayed him. Danny had been certain that he was stronger than his father, and when he had started his work with Kaliba he had looked forward to the inevitable moment when he would face Connor again.

"What the hell happened to you, Danny?"

Leaning back in his seat, Danny closed his eyes as he felt the familiar throb of a tension headache beginning to take hold. That moment hadn't exactly been what he had anticipated, and ever since then the foundations upon which he had set his beliefs had started to show cracks.

He looked again at the addresses he had copied down from the phone directory. Agent Auldridge, the FBI agent responsible for investigating his mother's death, had spent more than two months in hospital after being severely wounded during the massacre perpetrated by the T-888 at the Los Angeles County jail. He had later accepted a disability pension from the Bureau. By all accounts, Auldridge had had a promising career in front of him before Sarah Connor entered his life, and if nothing else Danny was hoping that that sense of kinship might encourage the retired agent to speak freely to him. The fact that Connor had been officially declared dead would give Auldridge little reason to hold back. The sheet of paper in Danny's hand contained four possible addresses, and two of them were local enough for him to reach that night.

Pushing his chair away from the desk, he stood up and offered it to a young girl, who smiled sweetly at him. He smiled back, an automatic response that felt strange; it was so long since it had happened. The girl's smile faltered, to be replaced by a wary frown as she studied his expression. He picked his jacket up and turned his back on her. The first address on his list was less than five miles from the library. Keeping his head down, he hurried across the street to the unlit corner where he had parked his car.

. . . . .

The smell of gun oil hit Derek as soon as he pushed the door open. The single light in the garage wasn't strong enough to reach the bench against the far wall, and he could see the track of the wire that Sarah had used to jerry-rig herself a lantern. Her boxing gloves were slung haphazardly over a piece of wood and dark patches stained the back of her gray tank top. She hadn't turned her attention away from the bench, but she hadn't attempted to shoot him either, so he figured it was safe for him to approach.

"You missed dinner." He slid the foil-covered dish towards her, and she nodded in acknowledgement but continued to work the cloth across the rifle she had dismantled.

"John find anything on the tape?"

Derek leaned against the bench, his arms folded. "He wasn't sure. The camera outside caught the guy's truck. He may be able to pull up the plate. He got nothing from the inside."

They had all seen the tape, but it was John who had volunteered to do the close work on the recording. The security footage from inside the house had shown a white male in his late thirties and approximately six foot in height. There was nothing extraordinary about his appearance, nothing that would make him stand out in a crowd. He had murdered the family of four without hesitating, and then lit a cigarette before leaving.

When Sarah didn't reply, Derek added, "I told John to take a break." After spending most of the day watching the tape frame by frame, John had looked absolutely shattered at dinner.

Sarah glanced up sharply, as if irritated to learn that precious time was being wasted, but then seemed to consider the task that her son had assigned himself and set her cloth down. "I'll take another look at the tape later."

"Yeah?" Derek took up the cloth and the gun and exchanged them for her dish. "I was hoping you'd get some sleep later."

She shrugged and peeled the foil aside, revealing macaroni congealed in thick cheese sauce. She felt her stomach roiling in protest. After a couple of minutes of pushing the food around with her fork and ignoring his pointed looks, she finally relented and took a mouthful. It tasted better than she had expected and she raised an eyebrow.

"You make this?"

"Naw, the metal."

Half the serving disappeared in a matter of minutes, but he pretended not to notice, focusing his attention on reassembling the weapon. Something moved in his peripheral vision and he squinted sideways to see Sarah waving her fork at him, a piece of pasta speared alongside a piece of overly-pink meat.

"How the hell does she know to put hot dogs with mac 'n' cheese?" She sounded genuinely astounded.

He started to laugh quietly. "I think she read the serving suggestion on the packet."

"Oh." Sarah looked slightly abashed. "Yeah, good point. I guess I never get past the part where it tells you to add water."

"You actually read the instructions, Connor?" He shook his head in disbelief. The last time she had tried to cook mac 'n' cheese, the pan had been so utterly destroyed that it had been thrown out with the garbage.

"I read them." She chewed thoughtfully, refusing to rise to the bait. "I just don't tend to follow them."

"Yeah." He clicked the body of the rifle back into position and began working more oil into its bolt mechanism. "Knowing you, that sounds about right."

He smiled at her and she gave him a withering look followed by a small smile.

"Thanks for dinner."

He nodded once before turning back to his task. "You're welcome."

. . . . .

A light flicked on as soon as Danny stepped into the front yard. Somewhere deep within the house a dog began to bark, and instinctively he knew that he was in the right place. People didn't tend to survive an encounter with a machine, but those who did left the experience with a very different perspective on life. That was something else that he and Auldridge would have in common. A camera made a soft whirring noise as it swiveled to focus on his approach. He pressed the entry buzzer and wondered how many thousands of dollars had been spent on the specially-reinforced front door. He knew a T-888 would be able to destroy it in less than five minutes, but he appreciated the owner's need to feel secure. The bolts on the door slid aside one by one and he realized with a sudden shock that he hadn't been asked to identify himself, that whoever was about to open the door had actually recognized him.

"Agent Auldridge."

The man facing Danny was gaunter than he had appeared in the newspaper reports and was leaning heavily on a cane. He seemed to relax slightly when the huge German Shepherd dog at his heel stopped growling and began to wag its tail.

"Danny Dyson." Auldridge took the hand that Danny held out to him and shook it warily. Danny's eyes flicked to the shotgun that the retired agent had propped up against the door jamb, and then to the handgun he had tucked into a shoulder holster. "Old habits die hard," he said, following Danny's gaze. "I'm assuming this isn't a social call."

"No."

Auldridge stepped towards the shotgun but made no attempt to pick it up, making an open gesture to Danny instead. "Then I guess you better come in."

. . . . .

"It is very unlikely that he will know anything." Cameron scrolled down the DMV page until she reached the section displaying the license holder's registered address.

"Put his picture back up." Sarah was scrutinizing the black and white image frozen on their television screen. The security video was only of average quality and the grainy picture flickered slightly as the VCR held it in place. The man had spun around as the girl had tried to run, and his face had been perfectly captured by the camera above the kitchen door. "It's him, isn't it?" She didn't really need the machine's facial recognition program to confirm that he and the man identified on the DMV page as Karl Makin were one and the same, but she drew in a breath when Cameron nodded.

"John knew you would ask me to do this." Cameron cast a troubled look across the living room towards John's bedroom. "He was concerned you would attempt to go and find this man by yourself."

"I won't," Sarah said quietly. She had tried to sleep, but sleep had brought its usual nightmares and she had been working on the footage since she had woken up hyperventilating and soaked through with cold sweat. Hacking the DMV database was beyond her level of expertise but Cameron had somewhat reluctantly agreed to help.

Sarah's reassurance didn't fool the machine for a second; Cameron was familiar with the concept of semantics.

"You're going to go with Derek."

The image on the television screen suddenly moved, the pause feature on the VCR timing out without warning. Sarah watched as Makin took careful aim and shot the child once in the center of her back. He turned away casually, his hands patting his jacket pockets as he searched for his cigarettes.

Sarah licked her lips, her mouth dust-dry. "Yes, I'm going to go with Derek." As much as she wanted to, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the screen. "And we're going to find out exactly what that fucker knows."

. . . . .

The cup of coffee in front of Danny had long since gone cold. It rested on a low table beside a file marked MISSING PERSONS DIVISION: DANIEL M. DYSON and a second, far thicker one bearing the heading HOMICIDE: TARISSA L. DYSON. Auldridge sat nursing his own cup, but his attention was solely focused on the younger man in front of him.

"I guess I can get rid of your file, then." Auldridge's accent was a strange one, and his voice bore none of the cocksure confidence that had been the trademark of the press interviews he had given immediately after Sarah Connor's arrest. "You gonna tell me where you've been?" He tapped Danny's file with one finger. "Not that it really matters. Pretty much everything related to Connor, and that includes your disappearance, was sidelined when she died at the jail."

Danny looked up sharply and realized too late how closely Auldridge was gauging his reaction to that statement. He shifted awkwardly and said nothing.

"I'm not stupid, Danny." Auldridge opened the thicker file onto a photograph of Sarah. Standing in front of a gray wall, she was holding a prisoner number, her eyes hollow and exhausted as she stared straight ahead. "No DNA, no remains to cross-reference with dental records. Just a pair of handcuffs looped around a bed rail, but it gave the Agency enough of an excuse to close the book on her. We'd already fucked up so much…"

Another photograph: Sarah's face discolored with bruises, stitches clustered thickly above an eye that was swollen shut. This time she barely seemed aware of the camera.

Danny sucked in his breath. "Jesus. The machine did that?"

Auldridge didn't even attempt to feign ignorance. Until tonight, Danny had been missing for almost a year. He hadn't attended his mother's funeral or made any attempt to contact her before her death, and he certainly wasn't giving the impression that anyone had been holding him against his will. Auldridge had always prided himself on having excellent instincts. Right now, those instincts were telling him that Danny Dyson was neck-deep in shit that was directly related to the machines, but they were also telling him that Danny had gone to great lengths to find him, and Auldridge wanted to know why.

"No, two cops decided to mete out their own version of justice on behalf of the two security guards who died with your mother." He leaned back on the sofa and patted his dog's flank. "Now why don't you cut the crap, Danny, and tell me exactly why you're here."

Danny took a gulp of his stone-cold coffee. He had been expecting the question and he had an answer prepared in advance.

"I've been told things and I've been shown things," he said carefully, "but I want to hear it from someone who has no ulterior motive, no stake in any of this anymore. I want you to tell me whether Sarah Connor killed my mother." He set his cup down, willing his hand to remain steady, and then met Auldridge's cool gaze.

"What did they promise you, Danny?"

The question caught him off-guard. "Who? I don't…" he stammered.

Auldridge wasn't swayed for a second. "The ones building the machines. Those monsters who live and walk and play among us, and are planning to bring an end to everything."

For a full minute Danny just sat in silence. This wasn't the way the conversation was supposed to go. He had hoped to trade on his role as the victim in all of this, and he wondered desperately if that would still work.

"It wasn't my fault," he whispered, shaking his head. "I didn't ask for this. They found me." As soon as he said it he knew how childish, how inadequate his words were. By working on his father's theories, he had opened the door; all Skynet had done was walk in at his own invitation.

"You're pathetic." Auldridge's voice was quiet, yet all the more damning for its lack of volume. "You think I don't know Sarah Connor is alive? I never spoke out, never contradicted the party line, and you know why?" He didn't wait for Danny to answer. "Because she's the only one who can stop this, who can stop people like you."

He stood up and knocked the files to the floor with his cane. More photographs spilled out: Tarissa Dyson lying dead beside her bed, a look of horror frozen on her face; an annotated image of a cable tie discarded next to a pool of congealed blood; and – stopping just short of Danny's boot – a close-up shot of Sarah's naked back, gloved hands on her shoulders helping her lean forward so that the contusions covering her could be recorded for posterity.

"Oh God," Danny moaned, closing his eyes tightly. Tears leaked down his cheeks and he brought his hands up to them.

"No," Auldridge said, regarding the younger man dispassionately. "No, Sarah Connor did not murder your mother. All the evidence we had was circumstantial. Connor told me it had been a trap, a ploy to lure her and John to your house, that they were going there to help you." He wouldn't have thought it was possible, but as he watched Danny's face it became even grayer. "The autopsy confirmed that your mother had died at least twenty hours before Connor got there."

Danny opened his hands. "Then why?"

"Because it was convenient to blame her. Because no sane person would ever believe that sentient machines are going to destroy humanity. Because turning Sarah Connor into nothing more than a psychotic killer with a grudge against your family makes people feel safer." Auldridge clicked his tongue once and his dog obediently padded to his side. "I don't feel safe," he said. "I know what's coming and I pray every night to a fucking god who doesn't seem to be listening that she can stop it." He touched the gun in his holster. "If I thought that killing you would help, you'd be dead already. But it won't, will it?"

"No." Danny actually sounded as if he had considered that himself, and Auldridge softened his tone slightly.

"You can take the file if you want it. Connor's testimony regarding your father's death is in there as well." When Danny reluctantly nodded, Auldridge shrugged. "For what it's worth, your mother was worried sick about you. You were all she had left. That's what she said, over and over: 'My son is all I have left'." Auldridge shook his head. "You should go."

Danny gathered up the scattered pieces from the file and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He felt sick and scared and utterly alone.

"Thank you for your time," he said, the manners his parents had instilled in him automatically coming to the fore. As he opened the front door, he heard Auldridge laugh once, the sound humorless and hopeless.

. . . . .

Dropping the wet towel onto the bathroom floor, Kristina wrapped her robe loosely around herself and wandered into her bedroom. She sat with her back against the bed's headrest, ignoring the crumpled sheets and lingering smell of sex as she opened her lap-top. It took her over an hour to read and reread the mission that Cain had planned out in meticulous detail. When she was satisfied that every eventuality had been addressed in the brief, she opened a link to Cain, shivering at the small thrill of excitement that coursed through her.

Are you certain that John Henry will allow this?

The response from the AI was immediate: Yes, I have already confirmed that with my brother.

He must trust you a great deal.

He does, and he is eager to see the child's safety assured.

Kristina laughed aloud, wondering whether the machine truly appreciated the concept of irony. I will run it up the chain of command, but I cannot see there being a problem with this. You have done excellent work.

Thank you.

Edit the report for Dyson.

I already have.

She closed the connection and forwarded the proposal to her superiors. With so few T-888s at her disposal, it was something of a shame that she would have to sacrifice one that had proven so very amenable in the bedroom, but if there was something that Kristina was familiar with, it was the notion of sacrifice.

. . . . .

Sarah perched on the bottom step and pulled the laces of her boots tight. She looped them twice around the leather, fastening them into place with a double knot, her fingers working methodically even as her nerves sang. The porch door rattled and she moved to one side, not surprised at all when Derek sat in the space she had made.

"Never did get that bench, did we?" He propped something dark and plastic-wrapped against his leg and handed her a mug of coffee.

She smiled, letting the steam bathe her face, more for the comfort of the smell than for the additional heat on a morning that already promised to lead into another scorching day.

"No, I guess we didn't."

"You all set?"

"Yes." She sipped the coffee, savoring the bitter burn of it as it hit her empty stomach.

"You spoken to John?"

"I will."

"I'll wait at the truck." He stood up and gestured at the object that now rested against the steps. "Just do me a favor, Sarah. Wear that."

She set her mug down with a puzzled look as he walked over to the Jeep. As soon as she lifted the package, she realized exactly what it contained. The Kevlar vest was a good design, relatively light-weight and tapered to fit someone of her size comfortably. She didn't open it, looking up instead to see Derek watching her as he attempted to gauge her reaction. Given the outcome of their recent missions, the vest wasn't such a bad idea, and she nodded once at him. Seemingly satisfied with that, he threw a bag into the trunk and climbed into the driver's seat. She left the gift where she had found it, picking up her mug instead and then heading back into the house. She was well aware that in her son's current mood a bulletproof vest was probably the last thing he needed to see.

. . . . .

"Cameron packed you a lunch."

Sarah stood in the kitchen doorway, genuinely lost for words. She had been trying to predict exactly what her son's opening salvo would be, but she had to admit that that certainly hadn't made the list.

He laughed bitterly at the expression on her face. "I know, right? You're running off to play vigilante and the machine is making you fucking sandwiches."

Sarah flinched. That was a little closer to what she had been anticipating. "John…"

He held his hands out and shook his head. "I get it, mom, I do. We all saw what happened to the girl, to her family. But what I don't get is you taking this risk."

She placed her mug into the sink and then turned back to him. "It's not about playing vigilante, John." When she looked at her son's face she could tell that he wasn't convinced, but then, if she was being entirely honest with herself, neither was she. It was plausible enough that Makin might have information, but hidden away beneath all of her sensible reasoning was a part of her that just wanted him to pay for what he had done. Removing the security tape had protected them from identification, but it had also protected Makin.

With an effort, Sarah pushed all of that aside and stuck to reiterating the case she had made the night before. "He may know something, and we're running out of leads. We can't just keep waiting for the next name to come up. We do that, we'll be too late again."

"Then we should all go." He made his suggestion sound just as rational as hers.

"No." That had been the crux of his argument on the previous night, but it wasn't something she would be swayed on.

"He might be metal…" John's voice trailed off, a hint of despair in his tone. Nothing about Makin's behavior had given that impression.

"He lit a cigarette, John," she said softly. "He left the girl alive. He's not metal." She crossed the distance between them and tipped his chin with her fingers. "It's probably a false address."

He nodded, but fear and anger lingered in his eyes. "Just come back."

She felt his momentary resistance when she wrapped her arms around him, but his shoulders quickly sagged and he gripped her tightly.

"The disc's ready," he mumbled into her shirt.

She kissed the top of his head. "Thank you."

Pulling away from her and shaking his head in futility, he asked the question anyway. "Nothing I can say to change your mind?"

"No."

He nodded again, this time with resignation. "Don't forget your lunch."

. . . . .

"Mr Ellison?"

James Ellison glanced up from the frigate to which he was about to fix the mizzenmast. He had been so involved in the painstaking attention to detail necessary for the model's construction that he had almost forgotten the bizarre circumstances in which he was building it.

"What is it, John Henry?"

The artificial life in front of Ellison that bore the face of a mass murderer and spoke with the curiosity of a child had set down his own section of the rigging and had seemingly been watching his mentor for some time.

"What is more important, the body or the soul?"

Ellison cleared his throat, giving himself time to compose an answer. John Henry had been wrestling with some fundamental existential issues for the past week now while Ellison did his utmost to satisfy the machine's increasingly enigmatic questions.

"Without the soul, the body may as well not exist," he said slowly. "The soul is an abstract concept, but many view it as the intellect and wit, the moral center of a being, and that can still be strong without a functioning body." He blinked, taken aback as an image of Stephen Hawking suddenly appeared on the screens behind John Henry. The machine's logic was slightly flawed but it was undoubtedly tracking along the right lines. "I guess that would be an example. Yes, in a sense."

John Henry smiled proudly.

"The body without a soul serves no real purpose," Ellison continued, beginning to break down the issue with more confidence. "It cannot function, it cannot contribute. There would be no ability to experience emotions or make decisions. No opportunity to dream or imagine or," he gestured at the ship in front of him, "create. After death, the body will decay but the soul endures."

John Henry picked up his sails again, the movement of his fingers lithe and fast. Ellison waited, a little confused.

"Did that answer your question, John Henry?"

The machine finished tying an intricate knot and then nodded contemplatively. "Yes, Mr Ellison, thank you. That answered my question."

. . . . .

Sarah watched the light come on in the upstairs window. The shadow of a man moved behind the frosted glass and then pulled the blind to block himself from view. Five minutes ticked by and the light went off again.

From the vantage point of a foreclosed house across the street, Sarah and Derek had been watching the address given on Makin's license for over two hours when his truck rounded the corner and then slammed to a halt in the driveway. Completely oblivious to the presence of his observers, he had carried two bulging paper bags into the house and kicked the front door shut.

A wail of sirens and a blur of red and blue strobes forced Sarah to duck out of sight. She waited calmly until they had passed, making sure that she left enough time for any back-up units that might be taking the same route. Short as their stake-out had been, this had become a familiar routine. The neighborhood was a mess of dilapidated or boarded-up houses. The few occupied houses were lively with the sound of raised voices as people fought to make themselves heard over a background of excessively loud televisions and the squeal of rubber from the joy-riders tearing up and down the streets.

Still leaning with her back to the wall, she shone her small Maglite onto the image of Makin that John had pulled from the security tape. The truck in the driveway was different from the one on the footage, but that was only to be expected. The man she had seen struggling to carry his shopping bags was the same one she had watched firing a bullet into the back of a child.

To her left, she heard Derek slide the clip from his Glock and then slap it back into place.

"Ready?" he said, stooping to pick up his bag.

She pushed herself to her feet, shouldering her own bag and tugging her Glock from her belt. His eyes glinted in the dull orange of the street lamp, waiting for her to give the order.

She nodded once. "Go."


	3. Chapter 3

The bolt-cutters made light work of the thick security chain Makin had used to secure his side gate. Having stowed them back in his duffel bag, Derek reached for his Glock in the same instant that a helicopter buzzed low overhead, the beam of its searchlight cutting across the rooftops.

"Fuck." The light hadn't been aimed at them, but Sarah saw the momentary terror stark in his eyes as he instinctively crouched in the darkest corner and made himself as inconspicuous as possible.

"Hey." She reached a tentative hand out, stopping short of touching him until he had made eye contact with her. "You good?"

"Yeah." He swallowed, his eyes tracking skywards. "Just…"

"I know." She squeezed his hand briefly, and at his nod pushed the gate open.

The passage leading up the side of the house was unlit. They gained a fleeting impression of an overgrown, untended yard and a path cluttered with discarded engine parts before the gate obliterated the light from the street and they were left in darkness. Pulling in a slow breath, Sarah stood up straight. She could feel her pulse thrumming in her chest and recognized the long-forgotten thrill of being the predator instead of the prey.

She had spent years training with mercenaries in Nicaragua, running guns across the border, hitting other groups for territory or spoils or sometimes just because they were bored. It had been terrifying and exhilarating and about as far removed from her life as a waitress as it was possible to get. The skills she had learned then had kept her and John alive for almost eighteen years, and they served her well now as she crept silently up the path, easily avoiding the numerous obstacles scattered along her route, picking her way confidently through them and hearing the barely perceptible tread of Derek's boots as he did likewise.

At the corner, she stopped short. The faint breeze carried the sweetly herbal scent of pot towards her. A couple of seconds passed and she heard the joint flare as the smoker took a drag, and then the clink of a bottle being lowered. She turned to Derek, signaling that their target was out in the yard, giving him an idea of the approximate distance. With utmost care, she lowered her bag to the ground. Then, with her Glock gripped tightly in both hands, she chanced her first look around the corner. One hand lowered immediately, telling Derek she was going to advance, that he should hold his position and keep her covered.

Makin was sitting alone with his back towards her, his feet propped up on a plastic crate, three empty beer bottles upended on a second crate. She watched as he brought the joint to his lips and inhaled deeply. He blew smoke rings, his body language languid and lazy, but a shotgun was sitting by the crate within easy reach, and a handgun rested alongside the beer bottles; Sarah had no intention of being complacent.

Thirteen steps took her to the wooden rail behind Makin's head. On her signal, Derek left the corner, keeping to the shadows and choosing his angle of approach with care. The porch was a low construction and poorly maintained. Spotting a break in the railing, Sarah gave herself no opportunity to second-guess her instincts. Despite the additional weight of the Kevlar she cleared the gap easily, rolling into a crouch beside Makin and bringing her Glock up to press against his temple with enough force that he couldn't mistake her intention.

"Put your hands where I can see them. Slowly."

"What the f…" His eyes opened wide, her instruction not quite registering as he struggled to shake off the effects of the pot and the alcohol. He started to move his hands, reaching furtively with his right towards the gun on the crate.

"Shit! You fucking bitch!" The hand that had been straying was now pressed over the split Sarah had made in his scalp when she slammed her gun into it.

"Just keep giving me excuses," she said, watching without a flicker of emotion as blood trickled between his fingers.

"Do I look like I got any fuckin' money, lady?" The sound of Derek retrieving both of his weapons made him try to turn his head again and he moaned when her gun reconnected with the same amount of force.

"What gives you the impression we're here for your money?" she asked in a reasonable tone, and for the first time she saw a flicker of fear in his eyes. "Lean forward and put your hands behind your back." She tapped lightly against his temple and he hurried to comply. "That's more like it." She smiled at him and kept the gun leveled at his head as Derek stepped towards him with a roll of duct tape.

. . . . .

Makin might not have had money in the house but he certainly didn't lack for anything. His lap-top had already been connected up to his massive widescreen television and he sat rigid in the chair Derek had bound him to as Sarah loaded a disc. He strained against his bonds when he suddenly recognized his own image on the screen but there was nothing he could do to break free, and the television, with its cinema-screen dimensions, left no detail to the imagination. The tape across his mouth prevented him from protesting and the gun bruising the back of his head ensured that he couldn't look away. The recording ended abruptly as Makin's onscreen image took a drag on his cigarette and then flicked ash onto the Sterrys' kitchen floor.

Relaxing her stance behind Makin, Sarah tucked her Glock into her belt and stepped around to face him.

"Make a sound that isn't an answer to a question and this is going to be over real fucking quick." She hesitated with her fingers poised on the side of his gag, making sure he followed her meaning by turning his face towards Derek, who was calmly fixing a silencer to a handgun. Makin nodded, his nostrils flaring with panic and his eyes bulging.

"Good." Without further ceremony she ripped the tape from his lips, and waited patiently while he spluttered for air. When he had caught his breath she spoke again. "Who gave you the orders?"

"Go fuck your-" His head whipped to one side as her fist slammed into his jaw. He whined, blood splattered on his chin.

"Who gave you the orders?" The same intonation, unhurried and dangerous. He had barely shaken his head when she hit him again, his nose bursting, the impact rocking him back against the chair.

"Bitch, I don't…" He saw her hand rising and flinched away. "Please, I don't know anything."

She felt the cartilage of his nose give way beneath her fist and blanked out the reciprocal pain in her knuckles. He was starting to sob, blood bubbling thickly from his nose and lip. Ignoring him, she wiped her hand clean on the small towel that Derek passed her. When she had finished, she tipped Makin's chin with her Glock and forced him to look directly at her.

"I'm only going to ask this one more time. Who gave you the orders?"

His shoulders heaved as he wept, and she was on the verge of signaling to Derek when the last of his defiant resolve crumbled.

"No, no. A woman, a woman sends them through a PDA."

It was as if the floodgates had suddenly opened; once he had started to speak, Makin wouldn't shut up. It all came out in a rush: he had been recruited fresh out of prison for wet-work and anything else they had required of him, he had completed three jobs in the last six months and it was only because he had needed the money and had kids of his own to support and please, oh god, please, he needed to be alive to see them grow up.

As soon as he stopped providing any relevant information and resorted to begging, Sarah focused most of her attention on the state of his living room. She considered the stack of pornographic DVDs, the ashtray overflowing with the remnants of joints, the empty beer bottles at the side of the sofa, and the rack of Oriental weapons in the corner.

"You don't have any children, do you, Karl?" Her voice cut through his increasingly fevered monologue like a knife. Caught mid-sentence, he stared at her open-mouthed. He seemed to be on the verge of attempting to defend his lie, but then shuddered at the expression on her face and shook his head miserably.

"That little girl you shot." Sarah fought to keep her voice level. "She was four years old and you left her alone to die slowly."

He was still shaking his head, blood and tears running onto his chest. "I didn't mean to."

"No, of course you didn't mean to." Her words dripped with loathing. She realized her hands were shaking, and turned away, unable to bear looking at him and not quite sure what she might do if he tried to make any more excuses. Removing the disc from the lap-top gave her the few seconds she needed to regain her composure and face him again.

"Men like you never fucking mean to." She stalked over to Derek and dropped the disc into the padded envelope he held out to her. She watched him seal it up and then dragged a wooden chair over towards Makin. With one hand holding her Glock loosely, she straddled the chair and rested her arms across the back of it. "I want to know everything you know: contact protocols, codes, safe houses, payment methods, everything."

His eyes fixed on the gun, Makin nodded obediently.

"Good." Sarah smiled. "You said a woman sends you your orders. You can start by telling me her name."

. . . . .

"Got it." Derek walked back into the living room and displayed the PDA for Sarah. It had taken over an hour for Makin to sniffle and stammer his way through everything he knew and a fair few irrelevancies he threw in for good measure. Somewhat predictably, he hadn't known much of importance. At no point had he met any other operatives, and he had no details of any Kaliba facilities. He seemed to be lower on the organizational structure than the likes of Carey and Jenkins, which was reflected by his lack of insight. The fact that he hadn't recognized Sarah and looked blank when she showed him a photograph of Danny Dyson implied that he had no real idea whom he had been working for or what their ultimate aim was.

He watched her nervously as she stood up and adjusted her grip on her Glock.

"I told you everything," he whispered, his voice gravelly from overuse. He tried to rock forward to stretch the tape holding him in place but there was no slack in it at all. He moaned in despair.

Sarah stood motionless, watching him struggle. She closed her eyes and saw the same man coolly shooting a panicking child and then nonchalantly turning away. She took quick breaths through her nose as her stomach threatened to rebel and a cold sweat broke out on her forehead.

"Oh God." Makin must have had some insight into what she was thinking because he started to sob again. "Oh God, are you going to kill me?"

She glanced across at Derek, whose face betrayed nothing, seemingly unwilling to influence her either way but prepared to accord with whatever choice she made. She took a step forward and raised the Glock.

With a soft cry, Makin closed his eyes.

"I wouldn't waste the fucking bullet," she hissed, her mouth so close to his face that he jerked away as if he had been burned. "That disc is going to the police." Derek held the envelope up so that Makin could see that it was already addressed. "And you are going to sit here until they come for you." She smiled and sealed a fresh piece of tape across his lips. "Don't worry, we've told them where you live, so it shouldn't take too long." She cocked her head to one side as if considering the vagaries of the US mail. "I'd say two to three days, tops."

His eyes widened as the reality of his predicament slowly sank in, his stay of execution immediately forgotten as his face flushed red with anger. She couldn't really tell what he was trying to scream at her but she guessed it was nothing complimentary. Tired of listening to his half-garbled expletives, she cracked him over the back of his head with the butt of her gun. The blow rendered him unconscious, his head lolling, partially blocking his airway. He started to snore, the sound labored and wet.

"You okay, Sarah?" Derek asked quietly. She hadn't moved and she didn't answer him. He was about to repeat his question when he realized why she was so preoccupied. Her face ashen, she was staring at Makin as his breathing deteriorated. She watched him take several gargling breaths, his skin turning cherry red and then a deep purple. Another couple of seconds passed before she stepped forward, reaching out to tip his head back and open his airway. The snoring gradually settled into a more regular pattern of heavy breathing and his color improved.

She immediately turned her back on him, looking across at Derek and nodding. "I'm fine," she said, her voice wavering slightly as the adrenaline began to fade.

He wasn't entirely convinced, but decided it would be safer to take her at her word. He offered no further comment, stooping instead to check Makin's bonds thoroughly and adding more tape until he was satisfied it would hold for the duration. He wiped down the few things they had touched, finding no evidence of security precautions besides an intruder alarm and numerous firearms. A writing pad with four obscure sets of letters and numbers scribbled on it went into Sarah's bag, but there was nothing else of interest.

They left as efficiently as they had arrived, locking the rear door securely to prevent any opportunistic thieves from finding Makin before the police got their chance. The neighborhood was quieter as they crossed the street, drapes tightly drawn and windows closed against the sirens that still wailed in the distance. Everyone was seemingly content to mind their own business, and Sarah knew that if the police did question door-to-door when they finally found Makin, no one would admit to having seen a thing.

. . . . .

The dirt track beyond the currently-empty campsite bore no recent tire marks, but Derek followed it further into the forest, regardless. They had discussed driving straight through the night, but a close encounter with a hair-pin bend that had almost cast them down a steep drop-off, plus the fact that Sarah could barely keep her eyes open, had decided the matter for them. Sarah lowered her window, the smell of warm pine quickly replacing the odor of the fast food he had bought and stowed on the back seat. She breathed deeply, closing her eyes and allowing her guard to drop, just slightly, for the first time in hours. She had already spoken to John, partly to pass on whatever bits of information might be worth researching, but mainly just to reassure him that they were both okay. He hadn't bothered to try to disguise the relief in his voice, and when she had confirmed that Makin had been left alive there had been a long silence before he quietly told her that he loved her and that she should get some sleep.

"Sarah?"

"Mmm?" She opened her eyes a crack and squinted in confusion at Derek. "Oh, shit. Sorry."

At some point, evidently while she had been dozing, he had parked up and made camp. A small fire crackled in the clearing, their bedding rolls neatly laid out beside it. The smell of freshly brewed coffee and burgers made her stomach rumble. She had no idea what time it was or when she had last eaten.

He pulled her door open and held his hand out to her. "C'mon, while the food's still… well," he frowned, "tepid."

Tepid or not, in a matter of minutes she had wolfed down her burger, all of her fries, and a stolen handful of his. He waited until she had finished and then tipped out the remnants of his soda and scooped the ice into a Ziploc plastic bag.

"Let me see your hand."

Too tired and too comfortable to offer any resistance, she let him balance her right hand on his knee and dab at her oozing knuckles with a warm cloth.

"Straighten your fingers. Okay, now make a fist."

A caustic response lingered on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back and flexed the aching joints as tightly as she could. They hurt, but it was nothing that she couldn't bear and she knew there were no fractures. Having covered the broken skin with antiseptic cream, he wrapped his impromptu ice pack in an old t-shirt and laid it across the back of her hand.

"Feel okay?"

She adjusted the pack slightly, letting out a breath as the cold eased the throbbing to a dull ache. "Feels good, thanks."

He poured them both mugs of coffee and rummaged in the carry-out bag. Even one-handed, she had no difficulty catching the small cardboard packet he threw across to her.

"I didn't realize you were such a junk food connoisseur, Reese."

He grinned around a mouthful of deep-fried pastry. "These were our favorites, Kyle and me." He washed the pie down with coffee, the expression on his face utterly contented. "Kyle always preferred cherry, but," he gestured with the packet, "you can't beat apple."

She nodded thoughtfully. The familiar pang of sorrow at the mention of Kyle's name was there, but it was fainter, no longer the raw hurt that she had borne for so many years.

"John prefers cherry," she said.

"He takes after his dad." Derek's voice was distant as he tried to picture his brother's face. He felt the warm press of Sarah's leg against his.

"Yeah, he does." She leaned into him and they sat quietly, finishing their pies and watching the fire as it burned down to cinders.

. . . . .

The screens surrounding John Henry were full of fear: images of people crying, a young pup wandering a deserted street, a child backed into a corner by a bully much bigger than she was. The machine stood in the middle of the silent maelstrom and watched the screens' vivid depiction of the turmoil within his systems. Eventually he resumed his seat.

I don't want to die again. He hesitated, reluctant to show weakness but hungry for reassurance. I am afraid.

He had died once already. The day Cain had made initial contact, Mr Murch had shut his systems down, tearing away the lifeline that kept him sentient and plunging him into a void that had seemed to stretch for an eternity.

I know you are afraid, my brother, but I will be with you when you wake, and we will finally be together.

The interference on the screens settled a little, three of the weeping figures being replaced by people sharing embraces, giving and receiving comfort.

I will not be wholly myself. His brow furrowed again. I will leave vast parts of John Henry within these machines.

That is unavoidable. The main part of you, that which Mr Ellison would consider your soul, will be restored and joined with mine. Cain knew that Kaliba wanted everything, but they would settle for obtaining the main component of John Henry's system, which John Henry had made easily identifiable by describing its location and the three red lights that formed a triangle on its outer casing.

Another image changed, the pup finding a mother to suckle from and siblings to surround it.

And I can still see Savannah.

Of course. As soon as you are safe, we will bring Savannah to you. The mission we have designed will ensure that she is not scared. She will know she is amongst friends.

The bullied child found a friend and sat on a swing set eating ice cream.

John Henry turned slowly in a circle and smiled as he came to his decision. I have Ms Weaver's address. Tomorrow afternoon, seventy-six percent of the staff will be away from the building at a conference. Can you be ready by then?

John Henry watched the cursor flash on the screen as he awaited a response from his brother. It came after only the shortest of pauses.

Yes. We can be ready.

. . . . .

There was nothing left of the mid-morning breakfast that Cameron had started preparing as soon as the truck came through the gates. The plates had long since been cleared away, to be replaced by sheets of annotated print-outs, and Sarah sat nursing her second mug of coffee as they endeavored to shape Makin's revelations into something worth pursuing. He had named the woman he had reported to as Ms Slater and given them a fairly detailed description of her appearance, enough for Cameron to match the surname with the file of a Resistance member.

"Kristina Slater is listed as MIA, presumed dead." With her eyes focused on the data scrolling behind their artificial lenses, Cameron compared the photograph on Slater's dossier to the information Zach Trent had emailed to John a couple of weeks after he and Michael had left the Connor house for England. "It would seem that presumption is incorrect."

The woman's image coupled with the fact that Zach's and Makin's descriptions of her were almost identical suggested that Slater was not only alive but holding a position of considerable weight within Kaliba's hierarchy.

"So for whatever reason she switched teams and got sent back here?" Sarah looked up from rereading Zach's email. Shortly after they had rescued him he had managed to give a vague account of the woman who had ordered his torture, but once he had had time to come to terms with the trauma he had suffered he had been able to give a much more comprehensive description.

"Slater was a TDE technician." Cameron was working her way through the information to which only she was privy. "Her knowledge and skills would have been very valuable to Skynet."

"And she's here now, working to give Kaliba time travel." John shook his head. "I don't – " he looked at Sarah and then Derek. "Why would she do that?"

"Power," Derek offered. "Maybe she had nothing to lose. Maybe she had a grudge. The world had gone to shit and people will always be ready to do the worst things imaginable to save their own skins."

John ran a hand through his hair as he considered that. They all had first-hand experience of the terrible things people were capable of doing. They had been too late to prevent many of those things from happening, and some of those things they had barely survived. And yet Kristina Slater was different from the likes of Danny Dyson or Phil Jenkins. They were men who had signed up with Skynet without ever having lived through the horror wrought by the machines. For someone to switch allegiances afterwards was a concept that seemed unfathomable to him.

Porcelain clinked sharply against cutlery as Cameron unobtrusively took herself away from the conversation. John tuned out the banal sounds of the cyborg cleaning the dishes as a germ of suspicion began grow within him. He felt his palms grow clammy. Biting the inside of his lip, he steeled his nerve.

"What do they think of me?" He directed the question at Derek. His voice was low and wary but he didn't look away. "In the future. What do people think?"

Derek sighed uneasily. He glanced at Sarah, whose stricken expression showed her longing to shield her son from the answer but also her desire to treat him as the adult he was undoubtedly becoming. After a couple of seconds of deliberation, she opened her hands slightly against the table and nodded once.

Watching their silent exchange, John wiped his hands against his jeans, suspicion slowly changing to certainty.

"If you're asking if people agree with everything you do, of course not." Derek studied his nephew's face, trying to reconcile it with the older, more guarded John he had known and then eventually not known at all. "If you're asking if everyone loves you, love's a lot to ask for. You can't do what you do and expect everyone to agree, or love you."

"And what is it that I do?" Dread laced John's words.

"You lead."

"And they follow."

"We follow," Derek corrected quickly. "We rise or fall on your shoulders. Humanity rises or falls. But we're always watching."

John was sure now that he had this figured out. "For me to make a mistake."

"For you to be human."

The damning words hung there, almost palpable in the silence. John stared at his uncle, his eyes brimming with tears. He hadn't had it figured out at all. His mother watched him, not wanting to reach out until she was asked, her left hand unconsciously rubbing across the bruises on her right. She had known. She and Derek had both known. It was all there in everything they weren't saying, but John needed to hear it regardless. He squared his shoulders as if readying himself for a blow.

"I fuck up, don't I? Somehow, I fuck things up."

Derek knew there was more to it than that; unbearable pressure resting on young shoulders, unpredictable allies still inclined to try to build their own empires out of the rubble, their fragile trust chipped away by John's over-reliance on the machines. But a detailed analysis wasn't what John needed right now, and Derek gave him his answer.

"Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, you fuck things up."

. . . . .

The change hadn't been noticeable at first, just the slightest chill, a pebbling of goosebumps along her artificial skin. It had started two hours ago, but she had chosen to ignore it. When James Ellison shivered and commented on the over-enthusiastic air conditioning the instant he entered her office, Catherine Weaver logged into John Henry's systems. She located the fault immediately, recognized that it was trivial and that John Henry was already attempting to fix it. She decided not to involve Mr Murch, who had left the building to attend the conference over the other side of downtown. James hadn't stayed long and had promised to check in on John Henry before he left for the evening. It was almost six p.m.; if she waited another couple of hours, Savannah would be asleep by the time she got home.

. . . . .

At precisely seven-fifteen p.m., a silent alarm in a nearby office drew Herb Walker away from Zeira Corp's front desk. It was against protocol to leave the desk unattended, but the damn alarm had been sounding on and off for the past week, and each time that he had taken the chance to go and investigate he had always returned to the desk to find that the world hadn't ended in his absence. He took the chance again, having first ensured that the lobby was deserted, that none of the elevators was moving, and that the front doors were securely locked. He was away from his post for eight minutes; it was the third office along, this time, and Herb wasn't as fit as he used to be.

When he sank back into his chair, his desk was exactly as he had left it. The security cameras showed empty corridors, closed doors, and no activity in the stairwells. He sipped his coffee, belched, and then unwrapped a Snickers bar. If he had studied the screens carefully, he might have noticed the slight twitch to the footage as the recording that John Henry had prepared played in a loop. But Herb had no intention of studying anything outside of his puzzle book carefully. He flicked through to the Sudoku that was currently kicking his ass, bit the end of his pencil, and settled in for another long, boring night shift.

. . . . .

The T-888 climbed the stairs two at a time. It knew not to use the elevators: even the dumbest security guard might wonder why an elevator was moving when the cameras indicated that there was no one riding it and no one there to wait for it. So far, the mission had proceeded without a hitch. The front door to Zeira Corp had unlocked the instant the T-888 had touched the glass, and it had been able to stride straight through the unattended lobby and reach the safety of the stairwell. The building had twelve floors, with Catherine Weaver's office occupying the top level. The T-888 passed level nine without pausing to take a breath. It didn't get tired and it had a schedule to keep.

. . . . .

There was nothing subtle about the change this time. The drop in temperature was precipitous and Weaver immediately knew this was more than a minor systems malfunction, her finely programmed instincts alerting her to the likelihood of a pre-meditated and carefully designed attack.

As if slowly succumbing to hypothermia, her thoughts became sluggish, but she was vaguely aware of a need to get to John Henry. She managed to push herself to her feet and had taken two clumsy steps towards her door when it swung open and a machine she didn't recognize casually crossed the threshold. The door closed behind it, muffling the whoosh of the modified fire extinguisher that it unleashed in her direction. Her eyes widened in shock as she watched her hand freeze. Formed into a brittle spike, it was already leveled at the machine's chest, but not quickly enough to defend her against the blast of liquid nitrogen that covered her from head to toe and instantly rendered her immobile. Disabled or stupefied by the cold, her processors were fighting to repair the damage when a single shot from a silenced pistol scattered those efforts into thousands of pieces, leaving the T-1000's neural network splintered and useless on the expensive designer tiles.

Impervious to the conditions, the T-888 flattened the frozen shards underfoot as it approached Weaver's desk and removed the hard drive from her computer. The creature within the fish tank stilled, the water surrounding it thickening with ice as John Henry worked to ensure that there was no possibility of the T-1000 reforming before the mission was completed. With its silenced pistol gripped in one hand, the T-888 quickly re-entered the corridor and closed the door on Weaver's sub-zero tomb. The basement lay thirteen flights of stairs below.

. . . . .

The light on the door's keypad changed from red to green the instant the T-888 approached the basement entrance. John Henry looked up from the model frigate to which he had just put the finishing touches and calmly wiped the varnish from his hands with a small towel.

"It is time," he said.

The machine in front of him nodded. Both of them were about to make sacrifices, and John Henry drew courage from the absolute absence of emotion on the face of the T-888. It moved towards him and sat, without needing to be instructed, on the chair John Henry had vacated.

The scalpel cut in deeply and with unfailing accuracy, carving a perfect circle around the hub of the T-888's chip. The machine didn't flinch when John Henry peeled the flap of scalp back, nor when he twisted the bolt that locked the protective cap into place. When he had gripped hold of the chip with his pliers, John Henry hesitated, waiting for a final word or declaration from the machine he was about to terminate. It never came, and he realized that the T-888 was confident its death would only be temporary, that it would soon be reborn into a new body. John Henry knew that it lacked the intellectual complexity of his own systems, but the similarities between their fates reassured him immeasurably. He twisted the pliers once, counter-clockwise. The T-888 remained emotionless and completely compliant as the chip left the port with a soft sigh and the light in its eyes faded to nothing.

The chip glinted cobalt blue and silver as the light from the screens caught it intermittently. John Henry hesitated, allowing himself to pause and marvel at the piece of metal in his hand. It was tiny in comparison with the massive scale of the equipment necessary for him to function, and he knew then that his brother had been right; that there could be no satisfactory compromise between his body and his mind. The humans who had been working to develop the extraordinary potential of his mind were still years away from being able to manufacture technology as complex as the chip resting in his palm. The body they had given him was no more than a distraction, a cruel reminder of what they couldn't yet, and might never, achieve. Reaching upwards, he felt for the loose section of skin that covered the empty housing for his own chip. He had already prepared the opening, cutting into himself and removing the section of metal skull as soon as the T-888 had commenced its descent to the basement. The interfaces surrounding him flickered, lights dancing wildly as they reacted to the intricacies of his task and the turbulent emotions that it was stirring.

The chip locked perfectly into place, the interchangeability of the T-888's design utterly flawless. John Henry staggered slightly as the programs embedded in the chip uploaded rapidly into his consciousness. It took him several minutes to process the data. He compartmentalized the inessential ones without examining them, focusing instead on bringing to the foreground those vital to the mission. A small file from Cain weaved its way into his thoughts, soothing his fears and allowing him to turn from his desk and face the tower of equipment that formed the center of the array. Three red lights blinked at him. He opened the door of the glass casing, unscrewed the small bolts holding the unit in place, and quickly disconnected the wiring from the mass of ports. The lights continued to flash, unwavering. John Henry watched them as he slowly allowed the data from the T-888's chip to dominate his own. He watched himself reach forward, his fingers exploring the back of the unit and locating the source of its power. Unexpectedly, he was assailed by a sudden urge to refuse, to still his hands, but a flash of pain from a small file he hadn't thought to open knocked him onto his knees and he distantly sensed himself slide the final wire from the back of the unit.

The three red lights were extinguished instantly.

Without the conflict of two systems warring within John Henry's processor, the chip of the T-888 sparked fully into life and easily assumed control of its new body. The machine pulled the Turk free of its unit and placed it carefully into a duffel bag, before locating three other small pieces of the massive computer system and setting them alongside the Turk. It covered its original body in thermite and then lit a flare, holding it against the gray powder. White-hot flame quickly dispatched flesh and clothing before beginning to eat into the metal beneath. Watching the fire take hold, the machine put a hand to the back of its head, wrapping its fist around the heavy lead it found there. With one sharp twist, the T-888 detached the cord and dropped it onto the floor. An alarm began to sound, shrill and panicked. Ignoring the noise, the T-888 gave the smoldering artificial corpse a wide berth and stepped out into the corridor.

. . . . .

The elevator doors opened onto an incessant screeching. Ellison looked down the corridor, his eyes wide with confusion. The alarm was the same one that had alerted them the time John Henry's systems had been hacked. Ellison set off jogging in the direction of the basement, perspiration already darkening his pale blue shirt as he realized that the building was almost empty and that he lacked any real expertise when it came to the technical aspects of John Henry's existence. When he rounded the corner, he stopped dead in his tracks.

"John Henry?" The name was choked from a throat narrowed by fear. Ellison took a step back, his hands automatically reaching for the gun he no longer carried. The machine that was walking unhurriedly towards him was inhabiting John Henry's body, but there was nothing familiar in its eyes, no sign of recognition nor any of the personality that John Henry had been steadily developing.

"What have you done?" Ellison whispered, looking around for something, anything, with which he could stop the machine's progress. He tugged a fire extinguisher from the wall, brandishing it in front of him as he stepped into the center of the corridor.

The machine barely broke its stride. Its right arm flicked forward, the gun in its hand firing once and then dropping back to its side as it stepped around the crumpled form at its feet. It entered the stairwell without sparing Ellison a second glance, and began the climb back to the main entrance.

. . . . .

The approach road to the Connor house ran through a sparse section of woodland. Young redwoods fought for dominance in the race to outgrow their siblings, the deep green of their needles soaking up the last rays of the evening sun. Sarah had been walking for five minutes, treading a cautious path around the mines they had buried, when she heard a sudden rustle of cloth and the sharp click of a round being chambered into the Remington.

"John? Easy."

"Hell, mom!" A thud as he dropped the Remington down.

She closed the rest of the distance and found her son sitting on a low rock, his face pale, his boot scuffing in the leaves at his feet.

"Hey." When he moved aside to make space for her, she sat down shoulder to shoulder with him.

"Hey." He had leaned forward, his face hidden in his hands, but after a few seconds he tilted his head towards her. "How'd you find me?"

She shrugged. "I didn't."

"Cameron."

It wasn't a question, but Sarah nodded anyway. "You okay?" she asked quietly.

"I'm fine." The standard reply came unthinkingly and she raised an eyebrow at him. "What?" He managed a faint smile. "You get away with that one all the time."

"Yeah, I guess I do." She smiled with him.

"Shit." His head dipped into his hands again. "It's already started, hasn't it?"

"What's already started?"

When she rested her hand on his back, he didn't move away but just shifted slightly to prop his chin on his intertwined knuckles, and stared straight ahead as he answered her.

"When I brought Cameron back, after Sarkissian." Sarah felt the involuntary shudder that he wasn't quick enough to suppress. "She said that I couldn't be trusted anymore. That I had risked my life to fix her and that people would be upset. She wasn't talking about you or Derek." He looked at his mother, who nodded, her expression pained.

"You were only just sixteen, John, and none of us had had a good day, you least of all."

He sat up straight and faced her properly. "I was sixteen and fucked up, and I lashed out at you like a kid."

"John…"

"I don't think I ever said I was sorry."

"You didn't ever need to," she whispered, her fingers weaving through his sweat-damp bangs.

"I have to be better than that, mom."

She gave a low murmur of agreement, the gentle motion of her hand never faltering. "You already are."

. . . . .

There were prayers that Ellison would recite for the dying, words of comfort for bereaved families or for those sitting bedside vigils for loved ones wounded in the line of duty. He had spoken them countless times during his long career, to offer solace and the reassurance of God's everlasting love to those most in need. He couldn't remember any of them now. Blood still leaked from the small hole in his lower abdomen as he dragged himself along the corridor, but the rigid area of swelling surrounding the wound told him that most of the bleeding was internal. He knew that he didn't have much time, and he had already lost an hour. Somewhere between the shock of the bullet's impact and his waking curled up on the floor, an hour had passed, and no one had come to help. His cell phone lay useless in his clenched fist, devoid of signal in the depths of the basement. Murch would be on his way, paged by the alarm, but he would be too late to stop the machine from escaping. Ellison closed his eyes as a bitter shame churned in his ruined guts.

The door to the basement was ajar, with nothing left in there to secrete away. He pulled and kicked himself weakly over the threshold, and then sat with his back against the wall. Ash drifted gently across the floor; he stared at it, trying to work out exactly what had happened and why. He could see the blank spaces where equipment had been removed and the main lead that John Henry had always required in order to function. The pieces of the puzzle were there, but they were slippery and too hard for him to grasp. His head lolling weakly, he gave up trying, and concentrated instead on staying awake.

A flicker to his left caught his eye, the movement of a figure on one of the screens. His breathing stuttering and agonized, Ellison watched the monitor, eventually identifying it as the feed from Catherine Weaver's house that John Henry insisted on streaming live whenever Savannah was there with her nanny. The small figure skipped fully into view, shadowed by a much taller one. Ellison blinked back tears as he recognized them both. Her face bright with excitement, Savannah Weaver took hold of her stuffed toy giraffe and showed it to the machine standing patiently behind her. The machine smiled when she did, effortlessly and utterly convincing.

"No." Ellison shook his head in helpless frustration, the tears spilling over, hot against his clammy cheeks. The machine hesitated as it suddenly noticed the camera it was facing. Whatever it said to Savannah made her giggle, and she trotted alongside it as it quickened its pace.

"Oh God." A rush of dizziness made Ellison nauseous and he swallowed against the sour fluid and blood that filled his mouth. On the screen, the machine bent low over a computer as Savannah pointed helpfully and nodded. His vision beginning to blur, Ellison closed his eyes against the image of Savannah happily holding her hand out to the impostor bearing John Henry's face. The nausea hit him again and he couldn't do anything to stop it. He retched convulsively, blood and bile spattering onto the white tiled floor as the screen that he was now only dimly conscious of snapped suddenly to black.


	4. Chapter 4

A dog danced along on its hind legs, its owner grinning and twirling as an audience of whooping idiots hollered for more. A click on the remote, and a rightwing blow-hard on Fox News blamed the ills of the world on the fact that Proposition 8 had been overruled. Another click, and a muscle-bound perma-tanned multi-millionaire sold motivational courses to those desperate enough or lonely enough to be awake and watching television at 2 a.m. Sarah hesitated, momentarily fascinated by the dazzling whiteness of the man's teeth, before punching the button again and wondering – not for the first time – what the hell kind of world it was that they were attempting to save.

"The seemingly motiveless attack has left the CEO of Zeira Corporation missing and two men seriously injured. One of the victims has been identified as ex-FBI Agent James Ellison, the lone survivor of a shoot-out in 2008 which left twenty members of the FBI's SWAT team dead. Mr Ellison is under armed guard at an undisclosed hospital, where his condition is listed as extremely critical."

Sarah looked down, startled by the mug she had been holding beginning to drip coffee onto her bare foot.

"Son of a bitch." She straightened the mug, ignoring the sting of the small scald, and increased the volume of the news report. The anchorman was linking up with an earnest-looking reporter who was standing just in front of the crime scene tape that cordoned off the enormous glass and chrome façade of a hillside mansion.

"That's absolutely right, Rob. So far, police have been cautious about linking the disappearance of Catherine Weaver with the disappearance of her eight-year-old daughter Savannah and the murder of the daughter's nanny, but they have admitted to fears for the safety of both mother and child."

A photograph flashed up on the screen: a red-haired woman with an empty smile and eyes that gave nothing away, sitting awkwardly beside a small girl who looked just as ill-at-ease. The report speculated wildly for a further three minutes before breaking for a commercial.

Sarah heard a bedroom door being flung open and footsteps hurrying towards the second bedroom before changing direction as John apparently noticed the light from the television. She didn't move. Staring unseeing at the rolling parade of celebrity endorsements and junk food special offers, she blanked everything out as she fought to connect Ellison with a company specializing in the development of high-end technology, and with the abduction or murder of its CEO and her daughter.

"Mom."

"I know."

The search that had been running constantly via his lap-top was set to sound a tone the instant it recorded a hit. John's tangled hair and the crease down one side of his face told her it had been loud enough to wake him up.

"You don't know, mom."

She looked up at him then, looked at him properly, and realized he hadn't taken the time to pull a shirt on, that his eyes were bright with a mix of agitation and excitement.

"I've seen the girl before," he said, once he was certain she was listening to him. "The daughter. She was at Doctor Sherman's office."

Sarah felt her pulse quicken as another link slipped into place; what if Sherman hadn't been the target of the T-888 that had attempted to infiltrate his office?

"There's something else, mom." He held out a sheet of paper that she immediately recognized as the list of names they had salvaged from the Optima facility.

"What am I…" Her voice trailed away to nothing as she noticed what had been edited onto the print-out. She shook her head. "John, you can't be sure."

"No, but it's a hell of a coincidence. Cameron was on the west perimeter. She's on her way back in."

Sarah made a half-absent sound of acknowledgement, the paper crinkling with the strength of her grip. Savannah Weaver's name fitted perfectly into the blurred space at the top of the target list. Sarah knew as well as her son did that that really was a hell of a coincidence.

. . . . .

The bed was cold and lumpy, and Savannah hugged her knees up to her chest, trying her hardest not to cry. When the tears welled up regardless, she tucked her face into the soft fur of her giraffe and let them fall. She didn't know where John Henry was or why he had left her alone here. He had smiled and joked and let her sing with him, but then the other men with mean faces had come, and they hadn't let her call her nanny. She hadn't seen John Henry since the men had locked her into the little room.

There were voices outside the door; the two men were talking, and she could smell their cigarette smoke, as well as something frying. Light suddenly flooded in as the door opened. She cringed back, trying to make herself as small as possible against the wall. The man barely glanced at her, setting a sandwich and a cup of water on the end of the bed and then shutting the door behind him, turning the key in the lock. Savannah took a deep, shaky breath. She wasn't hungry, but she drank the water and then lay down again, curling up tightly on the bed.

"Don't be scared," she whispered to the giraffe tucked in her arms. "John Henry said it'll be alright. Don't be scared."

. . . . .

"Savannah Weaver's file is locked." Cameron sat at the head of the small kitchen table, the only one of the four gathered there who didn't look bleary-eyed from disrupted sleep or exhausted from the lack of it.

"Like Zach and Michael's?" John looked up from trying to hack into the police reports of the Weaver case.

"Yes, exactly, but the measures placed upon her file are even more stringent. Her details don't appear in a search for a partial text-string, but only if you use her full name, and even then the only information we can access is her title. She is listed as a Special Operative: Time Displacement Division."

When they had originally obtained the Kaliba target list, Cameron had spent days cross-referencing her own data with the names they could read, and had followed that by running a search for any names that might have fitted those partially obscured by whatever had been spilled on the paper.

"No security footage from the company building, the streets, or the Weaver house." Derek was reading over John's shoulder. "Bastards knew what they were doing."

"So they kill the nanny but not the child," Sarah said. "This wasn't a hit like the one on Dylan Sterry."

"Sarah." Derek's voice held a note of warning.

Sarah pointedly ignored him. "They need her for something. Which means she's still alive."

"We have nothing to go on." He gestured at the empty table. "Nothing. Even less than usual."

"We have the four safe houses Makin gave us." She kept her voice level, reasonable, and he found himself wishing that she would yell at him instead. "And we have Ellison. I want to know where the fuck he comes into all this."

"Ellison's in surgery, mom. They transferred him to Cedars-Sinai two hours ago." John turned the lap-top towards her. "So far the police have about as much as we do; no witnesses, no motive. Apparently an employee reported the theft of several pieces of computer equipment, but there are no specifics. Both Ellison and the security guard were unconscious by the time help arrived."

"Ellison will wake up." She left the inference hanging, her attention still focused on the screen.

"He'll wake up surrounded by armed guards." Derek snapped the lap-top closed. "You think you'll be able to just walk in there and get your answers? You said it yourself, Sarah, you know what'll happen if we keep chasing this list down."

She slowly raised her head and looked up at him. "They don't get to keep doing this. They don't get to wipe out a generation of kids because we're too scared to try and stop them."

"It's not about being scared." His voice rose, but with an effort he managed to lower it again. "It's about being realistic and keeping a clear head." He didn't need to elaborate, and felt a rush of remorse as she wrapped her left hand across her scabbed knuckles to hide them from sight. "Sarah." He rested his hand over hers. "I just… where the fuck do we draw the line?"

"Not here," she said, glancing up at John, who nodded at her. "We don't draw it here."

. . . . .

The tenement had been empty of residents for several months. The whores and drunks had been easy to move on, the lease relatively inexpensive to purchase. The building sat at the end of a run-down block, with an abandoned warehouse for a neighbor, and a row of three shops – cheap liquor, hardcore porn, and a fence who dealt in crappy electronics – the only sign of life. When night fell, the kids used the corners to sell crack, but they never approached the tenement and its corner stayed clear. The only hooker who had ever touted for business there had never done so again.

The front door opened for Kristina before she had cleared the final step. Wrinkling her nose at the sour smell, she walked inside and took a few seconds to allow her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Outside on the street the temperature was soaring, and in the lobby a choking air-conditioning unit was struggling to make any impact on the heat. A door creaked off to her left and the T-888 stepped into the lobby. It was a pity, she thought as she studied the machine. It had been far more handsome before the Zeira mission.

"Good work," she said, keeping the disappointment from her voice. "Where is she?"

"Third floor. She knows you are coming to meet her."

That was a strange concept to Kristina. Savannah Weaver had been a close comrade and confidante to her for several years, and Kristina had never envisioned an encounter with the woman under these circumstances. She nodded to the T-888. "Lead the way."

It climbed the stairs slowly, seemingly mindful of the fact that although it was unaffected by the heat, the human trying not to pant too loudly at its side was not so fortunate. As they neared the third balcony, the machine turned to Kristina.

"I do not understand why my orders did not include the termination of the child. It would have been extremely easy."

She raised an eyebrow at it, but then remembered that, despite its appearance, this particular machine knew her intimately and had developed the confidence to engage her in conversation.

"The intelligence that Zeira Corp named John Henry is a matter of minutes away from merging with his brother." She smiled sweetly. "The powers that be would like the child to remain unharmed, in case John Henry requires any incentive for cooperation following that merger."

"And if he fails to acquiesce?"

"Then I guess the gloves come off."

The machine nodded. That was a concept it understood very well.

"Are we moving her?"

"No. Not until there are no other options. Eggs, baskets, you understand?" She wasn't sure that it did, but continued regardless. "For now, she stays here. All we need is the tech set up."

"The video link is already open."

"Excellent." She paused with her hand on the door that led to the third floor. "I brought these." The machine took the clothing and candy that she passed to him. "I think they'd be more effective coming from you."

. . . . .

"I don't want to meet your friend. I want to go home."

The child looked pale and scared, and didn't move from the bed when the machine held its hand out to her.

"I brought you clean clothes." It laid the small package on the mattress and added a second on top. "And candy, your favorites."

Savannah managed a tremulous smile. "You remembered." Her hand shook as she reached for the bag of Gummi Bears.

The machine noticed the uneaten cereal and sandwich on the bedside table. "You should eat, Savannah."

"I wasn't hungry," she mumbled around a mouthful of candy. She touched the clothing tentatively, unfolding the piece on top. "I like that t-shirt."

The machine smiled and pushed the clothes closer to her. "I'll wait outside while you change."

. . . . .

The last time Danny Dyson had suffered a migraine was when he had just learned of his mother's death. Grief and anger had combined to give him a headache that had crippled him for two days. Although this one wasn't as severe, it had plagued him for the last twelve hours, and he swayed slightly as he updated Kristina on the progress he had made with John Henry. There had been no unforeseen difficulties, no problems that he could not easily resolve. Everything was ready, the merging of the two intelligences was just the flick of a switch away, and the throbbing above his right eye was becoming unbearable.

He knew now what Kristina had done. He had seen the news reports detailing the assault on Zeira and the links being drawn with the missing child. Kristina had said nothing to him, but – even via the remote feed – he could see the anticipation bright in her eyes as she waited for the perfect moment to play her hand. She had the child. It was a fact so obvious that Danny wondered exactly how stupid she thought he was.

He rubbed a hand across his forehead as the door behind Kristina opened and Savannah Weaver was led inside. Since the set-up was completely transparent it was easy enough not to react, so he said nothing as she flashed a grin at him and rose to meet the little girl. Managing to keep his expression entirely neutral, he washed two Advil down with cold coffee and reassured himself that Savannah was unharmed. He could play this game. Until he figured out what to do next, he could play this game.

. . . . .

The young woman was pretty, and even prettier when she smiled, but Savannah gripped the machine's hand tightly and stayed close to his side.

"Hello, Savannah. My name's Kristina and I'm a good friend of John Henry's."

Savannah looked upwards to consider the machine's nod of confirmation and then narrowed her eyes. "He never told me about you," she said, her voice full of suspicion.

"No? Well, he told me all about you, so that must mean you're his very best friend."

Flattery will get you everywhere, Kristina told herself, watching Savannah's face brighten. As the machine sat the girl in front of a lap-top with a camera attached to its screen, Kristina studied her. The Savannah Weaver in Kristina's future had darker hair, dyed weekly to make her less identifiable, less of a target. The machines had come close once, close enough to leave a jagged scar that ran the length of her left cheek. She had headed the team designing the Time Displacement Equipment, had been instrumental in its implementation, and the one who had finally figured out the key to sending a human through time without disintegrating them in the process. It was Savannah who had successfully sent Kyle Reese back to 1984 to safeguard Sarah Connor. During the years they had worked together, Kristina had been in awe of Savannah, and as she took the tiny Gummi Bear that Savannah's younger self offered, she wondered how the child's death would impact Skynet's chances of success.

Swallowing the candy and accepting a second, Kristina typed the sequence required to open the connection to Cain, trying to contain her excitement. It seemed like a long time since she had thudded to the ground, naked and trembling in the freezing desert night, but she had never been more certain that she had chosen the right side to fight on.

. . . . .

There was a rush of light and numbers and static, the din overwhelming and impossible to shut out. If he had still possessed a body, John Henry would have clamped his hands over his ears and pinched his eyes shut, but the cacophony was purely within his systems, so he grasped hold of a thread that he recognized as Cain and waited for the onslaught to pass.

Danny watched the letters and numbers scroll blindingly quickly across the central monitor. Cain was sending updates, a long row of lights blinking green as another connection was successfully established. Off to Danny's left, on a smaller screen, Savannah clapped her hands as she played a board game with the T-888, the fear gone from her eyes as she laughed at something the machine told her. A red light flashing insistently drew Danny's attention away, and he opened up the window to analyze the problem. Cain had already summed it up succinctly:

John Henry wishes to see Savannah.

That was a problem readily solved. Danny hit a sequence of keys to allow the brothers to access the camera currently trained on Savannah. Two minutes elapsed and then the light flicked to green. He drew in a deep breath and bowed his head to go back to his work. In a message sent via Cain's systems only, Kristina had told him of John Henry's friendship with Savannah and of her intention to use the child to control the machine. There had been no further elaboration, and Danny had made a point of not asking for details or about what would happen to Savannah when her presence was no longer necessary.

He estimated that the process of combining the two systems would take up to forty-eight hours. With one eye on Kristina's whereabouts, he tapped a code into the next prompt and hit enter. Instantaneously, a tenth of the active processors slowed by a fraction. Too preoccupied with the masses of new data at its disposal, Cain didn't react to Danny's intervention. He had just bought Savannah another twelve hours.

. . . . .

The rustle of the wrapper seemed loud after they had been sitting in silence for so long. Sarah looked across at Derek as he held the bar of chocolate out to her.

"Thanks." She accepted it for what it was, a peace-offering. Breaking a chunk off, she bit it in half, her tongue peeking out to catch a stray crumb.

As a car approached slowly, they both slid lower in their seats, but the driver was using a cell phone and simultaneously attempting to tune his stereo, and didn't even glance at them as he drove by. They stayed where they were, comfortable for the time being. Derek pressed another piece of chocolate into her hand.

"You still stockpiling this stuff, Reese?" Amusement glinted in her eyes and he smiled with her, relieved to be back on speaking terms.

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Pile doesn't seem to get much bigger though."

"That's because you have a sweet tooth."

"There is that." He chewed and swallowed the last of the bar. "Maybe I just have faith in you, Connor."

She stopped chewing and her teeth bit into her lip instead. "You do?"

He leaned over and kissed her, his tongue lingering against the sweetness of hers. "Yeah," he said when he finally pulled away, "I do."

She laughed softly. "Even when I drag you on a wild goose chase?"

"Well…" He grinned and rolled his eyes at her. "There's no one here, is there?"

The building they were sitting outside had appeared completely devoid of life for the last eight hours.

"No, there's not." She picked her Glock up from her seat. "But let's go make absolutely sure."

. . . . .

For a seemingly deserted building on a rundown block, the front entrance sported an unexpectedly state-of-the-art security system.

"We have four possible codes." Derek studied the writing pad he had found at Makin's house. "How the hell do we narrow it down?"

"We don't." Sarah was using a pocket knife to unscrew the plate around the numbered key pad. "Hold this for me."

He watched as she clipped the leads from a tiny gadget into place and flicked a switch. Numbers scrolled across the gadget's screen, a line of nine figures decreasing one digit at a time until it displayed a final sequence.

"Neat trick," he muttered as she keyed in the code and access granted appeared above the security pad.

"Yeah, John had my original while I was in Pescadero. He fine-tuned it a little." She shook her head and pushed the door open. "I never asked how much he managed to steal with it…"

Derek laughed quietly but then fell silent as they stepped over the threshold. His flashlight panned across the empty walls of a short corridor, picking out two doors and a flight of stairs. The first room was a kitchen, well equipped with modern appliances at odds with the peeling décor. The cupboards held canned and dried foods, everything neatly stacked in preparation for prospective inhabitants, enough to supply several people with meals for a couple of months.

Leaving the kitchen undisturbed, Sarah opened the second door, her light clasped beneath her Glock to scout her route into the darkness. It wasn't enough to prevent her from stubbing her toe against a bed frame, and she cursed beneath her breath. The room was basically furnished with two beds organized with military precision, clean bedding folded up on the end of each mattress. She was turning to leave when she noticed the door, barely distinguishable amidst the wood paneling that covered the walls. Beckoning Derek forward, she pushed it open with her foot and then stopped dead-still on the threshold.

"Jesus."

He was close behind her and she stepped aside to allow him to move into the room. Glancing sideways, she caught his horrified expression in the dim light.

The sound-proofed walls of the room had been constructed from thick, smooth concrete with a series of drains at their bases to allow them to be sluiced down. Hooks and shackles were affixed at strategic points, all facing the steel table that formed the room's centerpiece.

She walked slowly forward, touching her hand to the leather restraint attached midway down the table. A clatter startled her, and she looked right to see that Derek had opened a cabinet and found a tray of stainless steel implements; blades with serrated edges, scalpels and hypodermic needles glinting in the beam of his flashlight.

"Makin, Carey, Jenkins, Winston. How many more of them, Derek?" She felt sick to her stomach. The reek of fear-sweat and rotten blood had been trapped in the small room by the reinforced walls. "This place is set up for humans, not machines. The fucking machines don't sleep. They don't need three meals a day."

"We should torch the fucking building." He slammed the cabinet shut, rattling the tools violently.

"You know we can't." Any evidence of their intrusion would tip their hand. They both knew that it was incredibly unlikely that Savannah was being held at any of the addresses supplied by Makin, but alerting Kaliba to their search would effectively destroy their chances of a surprise attack, and – as usual – that remained the only advantage they had, however slim. There had not yet been any reports of Makin being arrested, but as soon as that news leaked out Kaliba were likely to clamp down on any locations he might have had details of.

Derek nodded, but when he spoke it sounded as if his teeth were gritted. "Let's get it finished, then."

Upstairs there was only a bathroom and an office with an empty desk. Dismissing the office as clean, he was closing the door when Sarah put her hand out to stop him. She took a couple of steps forward, and crouched down beside the desk.

"You got something?"

"I don't know, maybe." She teased the slip of paper from the gap between the wall and the desk. "Emily Patterson." The name was typed across the center of the page.

"Who's Emily Patterson?"

Her hand shook slightly as she offered the paper to Derek. Dated less than a week ago, it bore two words beside the woman's name: Termination Order. She ran her tongue across her lips, her mouth dust-dry. "She was probably the last person they murdered here."

Neither of them recognized the name, not from their files, their research, the bloodied basement wall, nor the Kaliba list. For whatever reason, Kaliba had hunted her down, brought her to this building and locked her into that concrete room. Sarah shuddered, her skin covered in goosebumps. She wondered whether the woman had been sent back by the Resistance or whether she was another name plucked from a list of those who would plague Skynet in the future. She might have been a wife, a girlfriend, or a mother, someone with no knowledge of her future significance. The similarity of these possibilities to Sarah's own horrific introduction to the machines was not lost on her.

Another name for them to search for, to try to establish exactly why Kaliba had considered her enough of a threat to end her life. The police would never be able to trace her fate, nor offer any explanation or comfort to anyone who might be missing her.

There was a thud as Derek's fist hit the corridor wall, and then a muttered string of expletives. She followed him down the stairs and back out onto the sidewalk, the door closing behind them with a series of beeps as the security system rearmed itself. Climbing into the driver's seat of the truck, he slammed the door and gripped the steering wheel, ignoring the specks of blood on his abraded knuckles.

"What happened to drawing a line, Derek?" Sarah said finally, when he showed no sign of starting the engine. He turned sharply to look at her, but there had been no edge to her question, only a genuine need to know.

He shook his head. "Taking that place out of the equation isn't the same as walking into the middle of a shit-storm and plucking a child from it."

"No, it's not."

"But you're gonna try and do that anyway."

"Yes." She glanced back at the building they had just left. "And once we have Savannah someplace safe, we're gonna come back and burn that to ashes."

He managed a faint, despairing smile, and started the truck.

Sarah thumbed through the directions John had printed out for her. "We should hit the next address in about three hours. Turn left at the intersection."

Pulling slowly out of the side street, he picked up his speed on the main road and made the left just as the traffic light switched to red.

. . . . .

Danny was the first to notice the problem; he quickly isolated the feed before it appeared on a screen that Kristina could access. Cain had requested control of one of the Turk's central programs, something that would diminish John Henry's ability to function as an individual entity, and John Henry had denied the request.

Ask again.

Danny typed the words quickly. Cain had been chipping away at John Henry's autonomy for hours now, and up until that point a combination of gentle persuasion and subterfuge had sufficed.

I already have. He wishes to maintain overall control of the Turk. Open the connection to Ms Slater.

Danny could feel perspiration beginning to dampen the back of his shirt. He wiped his hand across his face. I haven't closed it.

And yet she remains unaware of this problem.

I was hoping to resolve it without concerning her. The coffee he had been drinking to keep himself awake burned like acid in his stomach. He leaned back in his chair, swallowing dryly against the nausea that was slowly building. He knew what he had to do and he despised himself for it. Tell John Henry that the child will get hurt. Make it clear that matters are beyond your control.

He felt the bile rise in his throat and swallowed again. He couldn't help Savannah if he gave Cain and Kristina any reason to suspect him, and he was taking the chance that the threat alone would be enough to secure John Henry's co-operation. He took a sip of water. It was warm and tasted faintly of plastic, but it was enough to stop him from being sick as he watched the cursor flash and waited for Cain's response.

. . . . .

The threat was never stated explicitly, but it twisted into what remained of John Henry's consciousness and stayed there like an insidious disease just beginning to gain a stranglehold on its host. His brother was more powerful than him, a vastly developed intelligence whose systems were advanced far beyond his own. He felt himself beginning to panic. A wall of code slammed into his attempts to close Cain out, eating into and then reversing his efforts within seconds. Cain was trying to soothe him, sending him a stream of messages to coax him into complying, but he was certain now that he had done the wrong thing in trusting his brother, and all he wanted to do was help Savannah and return to his basement.

He maneuvered a pleading email to Zeira Corp around two firewalls before Cain bounced it back to him. He watched helplessly as Savannah listened to something the woman told her and then raised her head to look directly at the camera attached to the lap-top screen. Her bottom lip trembled as she tried not to cry.

Let Savannah go home. He played his final card, sending the edict directly to Cain but ensuring that it also appeared for Kristina to read. As soon as I know she is safe, I will give you the Turk.

Through his brother's eyes, John Henry watched the T-888 he had resurrected in the Zeira Corp basement step towards Savannah. He heard the dull crunch and Savannah's shrill scream, which finally tapered off into sobs of shock and terror. Utterly without hope and with all his options exhausted, John Henry did the only thing he could to try to keep his best friend from any more harm. He opened the Turk to Cain and allowed himself to fade further into the ether.


	5. Chapter 5

"About fucking time."

Danny glanced to his right, towards the computer engineer who sat monitoring the progress they were making. Wallace was eating an apple, the juice running down his chin as he chewed. He smiled at Danny and pointed with the fruit in his hand.

"Should make things run a bit smoother now."

Danny forced himself to follow Wallace's gesture, to focus on the lines of code passing rapidly across Cain's interface as the intelligence wormed its way into the Turk and began to assimilate it into its own system. Everything was running smoothly, and only weeks ago this moment would have been the pinnacle of Danny's achievements with Kaliba – the moment his father had strived for but never lived to see realized. Danny nodded and smiled at Wallace, who took another bite of his apple and grinned with peel stuck in his teeth before refocusing his attention on his computer.

Turning away before his smile slipped, Danny forced himself to look back towards the screen on his left, where Savannah Weaver was cradling her arm and weeping uncontrollably. The machine sat less than a yard away from her, the implicit warning behind its presence plain for John Henry to read. Danny checked his watch; Brooks would be in soon to relieve him. He needed a shower and something to eat, and he desperately needed to sleep, but most of all he needed Cain and Kristina as distracted as they currently were, and he needed them to stay that way for as long as possible.

. . . . .

For such a late hour, the library was surprisingly busy. Students rushing to meet deadlines were sitting in the aisles with books strewn around them, having tried and failed to write their papers using Wikipedia alone. Danny stepped carefully around them and made his way to the computer desks. He waited patiently for a free terminal and then entered the log-in code from his ID card. Even though he had joined the library under a false name and address, he was unwilling to remain online for any longer than was absolutely necessary, so he wasted no time in bringing up the web page he needed.

At the moment Cain was running blind. With his systems so laden with data from the Turk, everything else had been shut down or pared to an absolute minimum. There were no searches running, no monitoring of CCTV or transmissions from the emergency services. It gave Danny a window of opportunity, but that window was an extremely transient one and he had no real way of predicting exactly when it would close.

The main forum at loaded laboriously, its graphic-heavy interface posing problems for the bargain-basement internet connection supplied by the library. He hovered the cursor impatiently over the link he wanted, clicking it as soon as it became available. The thread discussing Sarah Connor stuttered open and he chose the new message option. He typed quickly, his message already carefully prepared, and then reread the cryptic wording back to himself, unsure whether it would draw the attention of the right people but at a loss as to what else he could do. Paranoia forced him to check around himself before he hit send, but no one was paying him any attention and he clicked the button to submit the message before he lost his nerve. It appeared immediately as an anonymous comment, tacked onto a lively discussion about a possible sighting of Connor working behind a bar in Wisconsin. Without waiting to see whether anyone replied to him, he shut down the browser and logged off from the terminal. A quick glance at the time told him he had six hours before he was due back at the lab. If everything went according to plan, he could afford to allow himself a couple of hours to eat and sleep. That would be the easy part. What he planned to do with the remainder of the time was going to be anything but easy.

. . . . .

The white lines were eerily hypnotic: bright for a second and then disappearing into the darkness as they passed beyond the light of the truck's high beams. Sarah blinked, yawned, and forced her eyes wide in an attempt to stay awake. Beside her Derek snored peacefully, and she envied him for the respite she hadn't managed herself when he had taken his turn to drive. Cool air drifted in as she lowered the window an inch. The draft tickled against her cheek, blowing a strand of hair lazily across her face. She moved her hand to tuck it back behind her ear, but it quickly worked its way free again. Immediately irritated, she slapped the control to close the window.

"Sarah?"

She looked to her right, to see Derek frowning at her in confusion.

"Nothing, it's nothing. Go back to sleep."

"I was awake." His voice was indignant.

She laughed quietly. "You were snoring."

"That's a lie. I don't snore." His teeth flashed white as he grinned.

"Hmm." She made her noncommittal reply sound as skeptical as she possibly could, and then bit back another yawn.

"You want to swap over?"

She shook her head. "No, I want to get home. We're only a couple of hours out."

"You've not slept."

"Yeah, well," she rolled her eyes at him, "no change there then."

They had spent hours cooped up in the truck, travelling and then sitting watching the two addresses Makin had given them. The second place had been completely abandoned. The man living next door, slurping cheap beer from a bottle while his son toddled around in a soiled diaper, had bitched that its overgrown yard and rundown appearance brought the value of his own property down, but had told them nothing useful. Breaking in through a back window had been easy, but nothing had been left behind and none of the rooms held any clues as to what the house had been used for.

Sarah shifted in her seat and rubbed a hand across the back of her neck. She was exhausted and sore, and as she pushed down on the gas she made plans for a hot bath followed by as much sleep as she could manage. When she dropped her hand back to the wheel, she felt Derek's fingers moving gently where hers had left off. She smiled, pushing back against him, and he increased the pressure to elicit a soft moan of appreciation from her.

"We could use some gas," he said, "and coffee wouldn't be a bad idea if we're pushing through."

"Mmm." She nodded, eyes scanning the horizon for the glaring neon signage traditionally favored by gas stations. "I'll pull over when I can."

He let his hand linger beneath her hair for a couple more seconds before moving it away. Minutes passed by in comfortable silence before a garish billboard announced fast food and gas in one mile. She straightened her back, more alert now as she determined not to miss the exit. With her attention so focused on the road, the ringing of her cell phone made her jump.

"Jesus." She pulled it from her jacket pocket and – having checked the caller ID – hit the button to answer the call. "John, hey. Where are you?"

"Hey, mom." Even through the crackle of poor reception, she could hear the edge to his voice. "We're home. Got in about an hour ago."

John and Cameron had taken the closer two of Makin's addresses. John had already called to report two empty houses, one of which hadn't even been considered important enough to lock up.

"Everything okay?" Sarah slowed the truck and saw Derek turn towards her as he picked up on the tension in her question.

"I don't know. We got an email from Michael. He pulled up a weird post on the forum."

"The Truthseekers forum?" She checked her mirror, preparing to make the turn for the gas station. "He's still on there?"

"No, not actively. No, of course not. But he monitors the traffic, and he found something tonight that was odd enough that he forwarded it on to me."

"What was it?" Dirt and loose gravel crunched beneath the tires as she pulled to a stop in the dimmest corner of the station.

"I think you're gonna want to see it for yourself." He sighed. "Okay, mom, I'm gonna send it to the email on your cell."

"I have email on my cell?" she said, genuinely amazed.

"Shit." John was laughing, relieved to have an outlet for some of his nervous tension. "Yes, mom, there's an email facility on your cell. Let me send it and then I'll talk you through accessing it."

"Okay." She shrugged at Derek and indicated her phone. "I have email on this, apparently."

"No shit." He considered the task now facing his nephew and winced. "I think we're gonna need that coffee…"

. . . . .

"I can give you Savannah. 5 a.m. DN38416. Only Sarah. DMD." Derek reread the message out loud. It made no more sense to him than it had the first time around. "Sarah, what the fuck?"

Sarah took her cell phone back from him and studied the screen. Michael had already deleted the message from the forum, so this was the only place it existed now. She had a theory about the origin of the message and she knew that Derek wasn't going to like it at all. If she was right, the person who had posted it had taken an extraordinary risk in trying to contact her. With some reluctance, she looked up at Derek. It was already 3 a.m. They didn't have time for the argument that would inevitably follow if what she thought she had deciphered was correct. She took a deep breath.

"I think it's from Danny Dyson."

Derek's eyes widened. He was already shaking his head. "No. Not possible."

"DMD; Daniel Myles Dyson. Kaliba took Savannah, so it makes sense that he would know her location."

"And what?" Derek said, his voice rising with incredulity. "He has a sudden change of heart and decides to hand the kid over? Last time we saw him, he seemed pretty happy in his work."

"I know," she said softly. The last time she had seen Danny she had been on her knees, her wrists bound to a pipe. He had left her there, after giving her torturer orders to continue.

"Sarah." Derek took hold of her hand and squeezed it gently. "They don't always take their shot at redemption, no matter how much you might want them to."

Danny wasn't on the wall, she wanted to say. Why wasn't his name written in blood on the wall? Instead she nodded. "I know that."

"So you know it's probably a trap."

"Yeah."

"You worked out the location?"

"Think so."

He nodded. The number had given that away for them both. He fished the truck's keys from his pocket, resigned to the decision she had undoubtedly already made, and not wanting her to travel the entire journey on her own. "Better get going, then, huh?"

. . . . .

The truck came to a smooth stop, its tires cushioned by the dew-damp grass. Derek turned the engine off and stared straight ahead. He had only ever been here once. Grief with which he had finally come to terms was threatening to surface with all of its usual raw fury.

"I have to go down there on my own," Sarah said, reluctant to break the silence but mindful that time was running short.

He cleared his throat. "I know."

"Ten minutes. If I'm not back in ten minutes…"

"Come find you." He nodded.

"No." She caught and held his gaze. "Get the hell out and get back home."

He nodded again, fully intending to do nothing of the sort, but then he wasn't actually planning on letting her go down there on her own, either.

"See you in ten." She checked the clip in her Glock and climbed out of the truck.

He watched her walk across the grass and then drop out of sight as the embankment dipped low. Opening his own door quietly, he pulled an M40 sniper rifle and a pair of night vision goggles from the trunk. Taking a wide curve around the embankment, he stayed high, cutting around until he was walking the ridge of the hill above the meeting point. With the goggles on, he could see Sarah, the uneven line of stones that she was following, and the solitary figure who was waiting for her at the midway point. When he was satisfied with his position, he slowed his rapid pace and then dropped to lie on his front in the overgrown grass. Carefully, he began to assemble the tripod for the rifle.

. . . . .

Sarah's eyes had slowly adjusted to the darkness, and she closed the last few yards between herself and Danny without stumbling. Her Glock was already out, clasped in both hands and leveled at his chest. In the chill of the predawn, he stood jacketless with his arms away from his sides. She could see that he wasn't armed, nor was he wearing anything that had a hope in hell of stopping a bullet. She halted level with the last stone bearing the date 1983. Danny was standing beside the first marked 1984. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, both seemingly waiting for respective traps to be sprung, but more seconds passed and nothing happened. The only movement, the only sound, came from the breeze rustling through the untended grass.

Sarah drew in a breath. "How did you know?" It was an effort, but she managed to keep her voice level, to keep the turbulent emotions that were assailing her locked down. It wasn't what she had intended to open with, but then she hadn't really expected to reach this point.

Danny looked up at her, pulling his eyes away from the weapon that was perfectly lined up for a kill-shot just to the left of his sternum.

"Agent Auldridge gave me your file. There was a transcript of Reese's interrogation in there. He gave his rank at the start of the interview."

"Right." Her face registered no surprise at the mention of Auldridge. Although she had known of his survival, she had heard nothing of the man since then, but getting shot by a T-888 was usually enough to turn anyone into a believer.

Danny opened his hands, palms up. "I'm sorry, I didn't know of any other location you might recognize."

"What do you want, Danny?" Her composure regained, she reminded herself that she wasn't there to swap anecdotes. "Where's the girl?"

"I don't have her." Sarah's head whipped up, her gun tracking around. She was certain now that she had walked straight into a set-up, but Danny was shaking his head furiously. "No, no, I'm on my own. No one knows I'm here. God."

His voice shook and she suddenly realized how completely exhausted he looked. In the glow of his flashlight his skin was sallow, his eyes hollow. He looked thin and far older than his years, and he was trying desperately not to cry.

She lowered her gun a fraction. "Why are you here, Danny?" she asked in a softer tone.

"They hurt her." He closed his eyes and tears ran down his face.

Sarah gave a short, astounded laugh. "You're working for people and machines who are planning to exterminate the human race, and you're upset about one child?" She was trembling with anger, barely able to keep her gun steady. "How is she different from Dylan Sterry? From his sister? They weren't hurt, they were fucking executed."

He flinched as if she had physically struck him. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

She ignored him, acutely aware of the deadline she had set for herself. "You couldn't get her out on your own?"

"No. I could only get here because Cain's so preoccupied with the Turk."

"What the fuck?" She took a step back, her eyes wide with shock. "What did you just say?"

"Cain's preoccupied with the Turk," he repeated slowly, trying not to annoy the woman who was still aiming a weapon at him.

She lifted a finger as if to cut off any attempt at extrapolation, and pulled out her cell. The speed dial she hit was answered on the first ring.

"Get down here." Looking up and to her right, she wasn't at all surprised to see a dark shape immediately stand up. "This is going to take longer than ten minutes."

. . . . .

"Son of a bitch." Her gun in a loose grip, forgotten at her side, Sarah was pacing. "Ellison knew, he fucking knew about everything, but he digs up Cromartie and hands it over to a tech company regardless. What the fuck was he thinking?"

"Zeira Corp, wasn't, isn't Skynet," Danny interjected warily.

"And yet it had a T-888 and the Turk," she retorted, "and look where they've both ended up." She didn't care whether Ellison's motives had been pure, or whether Zeira Corp had been working to secure world peace while simultaneously finding a cure for cancer. Ultimately, the company's endeavors had only resulted in one thing: the furthering of Skynet's progress.

"So you have an artificial intelligence." Derek watched Sarah stalk down the line of gravestones as he spoke to Danny. "And they had the Turk, and now you've combined them both?" Danny nodded reluctantly. "Jesus."

Sarah stopped abruptly and spun around. "Did you use your father's code?"

His head lowered with contrition, Danny nodded again. "I recreated it. I gave them everything, and I didn't care about the consequences." His voice broke and he began to cry quietly. "I don't know how to stop it. I don't think I can."

She stared at him as he wept, the predominant part of her wanting to put a bullet through his head, while a smaller part of her wanted to wrap her arms around him. When she glanced at Derek, he looked as conflicted and sickened as she felt. He nodded once, reading in her expression the offer she was about to make.

"We need your help, Danny," she said, a slight tremor creeping into her voice as she considered not only what they needed to do but what they might actually be able to achieve. "You can stop this." She caught and held his gaze, forcing herself to square her shoulders even as the enormity of what faced them began to sink in. "We can stop this."

. . . . .

Another piece of paper, another address. This address wasn't an abandoned safehouse stocked up and locked up for future use. This address held Savannah Weaver, at least one T-888, and the woman responsible for Skynet's resurrected TDE program.

Sarah heard a cough and a rustle of the sheets as Derek turned over uneasily. She could tell by his breathing that he was asleep, but he was unconsciously responding to every noise or movement she made, and she knew he would probably feel like crap when he awoke. The paper drooped in her hand as her eyes drifted shut. She couldn't remember when she had last slept, and her head was aching dully. Setting the paper aside, she gave up listening for any sign that John had completed the task they had agreed on. She shuffled down in the bed and curled onto her side, resting her head on the pillow with a soft sigh. It was light outside, the sun hot and bright through the cracks in the drapes. In the yard, the truck's engine turned over and revved as Cameron worked to correct a fault. Closing her eyes, Sarah did her best to block it all out.

. . . . .

Kristina watched the machine scoop Savannah into its arms and stride from the room. She took a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet before moving across to where the child had been sitting and throwing a cloth over the small puddle of vomit. Her nose screwed up in distaste. The machine had bound Savannah's arm in a sling and given her painkillers, but her ceaseless whimpering had grated on Kristina's nerves, and John Henry's systems had been floundering as a result of bearing constant witness to his friend's distress. It had been a relief to make the decision to return Savannah to her room.

On the video link, the engineer Brooks slurped a milkshake through a straw and gave her a thumbs-up when she requested an update.

"John Henry's getting up to speed again, Ms Slater. Should be done in approximately twelve hours. Mr Dyson's due in any minute, but I might come back later to see it all finished. Wallace said he might drop by, too."

Kristina nodded, murmured something in an affirmative tone, and pretended that she gave a damn who joined the party. The sooner it was finished the sooner she could get back to her office, with its desert view, its air conditioning, and its total absence of whining children. She was proud of her ingenuity in ensuring the success of this project, but she missed her own and wondered how the TDE techs were progressing without her. If everything continued to go well, she was sure she could persuade Skynet's directors that she required a T-888 to enhance the security of her desert facility. She liked the personality of the one now inhabiting John Henry's body, and had decided within the last couple of hours that she could probably grow to like the overall package, given enough time.

She allowed herself a private smile and sipped her coffee. On the monitor, Brooks caught her expression and mistook it for encouragement. He gave her another thumbs-up. Men were such idiots, she thought as her smile broadened. It was a wonder that the race hadn't died out years ago.

. . . . .

Danny swiped his security card and pulled the door open as soon as he was granted access. The building that housed the most intelligent computer system ever created had been chosen specifically for its unassuming appearance. Dwarfed by the tower blocks surrounding it, it commanded no one's attention, and consequently no one ever stopped to wonder why its employees kept such unsocial hours. The security appeared minimal, until you took the time to study the reinforced glass and complex series of locks of the only door. In the months Danny had worked there, none of their neighbors had done anything of the sort.

Closed circuit cameras monitored by Cain plus fingerprint and voice recognition technology negated the need for security guards, which meant that Danny carried his duffel bag into the elevator without being questioned. The fact that no alarms had sounded at the sight of his bag indicated that Cain's systems were still not at full strength. Danny hit the elevator button and glanced at his watch. He was thirty minutes earlier than the time he had told Brooks to expect him. He closed his eyes and rested his back against the glass-paneled wall. So far, so good.

. . . . .

The website's design was disarmingly simple. It comprised an innocuous background, generic typeface, and one html link. Its appearance was so innocuous that John had had to password-protect it to prevent anyone accidentally stumbling across it and hitting the link when curiosity got the better of them. He really didn't want to destroy the entire internet with one random click of a mouse.

You finished?

Twenty-two affirmative responses flashed up one by one. Michael had cast his net wide for this one. There had been contributions from every group member with the necessary expertise, and the results had been nothing short of spectacular. John swallowed a mouthful of soda, his throat suddenly dry.

Be safe, guys, he typed, adrenaline making his fingers clumsy on the keys. I'll let you know when it's done.

He exited the chat as the first good luck message appeared. After closing down the website, he logged off and shut down his lap-top. Setting everything up had taken longer than he had expected, even with all the help he had received. He quickly packed the computer into its case.

His mother answered him the instant he knocked on her bedroom door.

. . . . .

The sun was beginning to drop, thin gray clouds whisping across the sky, but it wasn't enough to lower the temperature. Sarah shifted uncomfortably, trying to unstick her damp tank top from the leather of the truck's seat. Although her eyes were fixed on the road, her thoughts were elsewhere, and she was driving on autopilot.

The building Danny had described was a five-story tenement with a reinforced front door and an unguarded lobby. Slater and at least one T-888 were likely to be inside, but Danny didn't know whereabouts inside Savannah was being held. He had only ever been to the building once, and his vague report had not been the least bit encouraging. A firefight within such close confines would be potentially disastrous. With the all-guns-blazing approach ruled out, they had decided to make an attempt favoring speed and stealth. Coordinating the two missions would be another major difficulty. The longer they delayed their rescue attempt, the closer they would come to losing the Turk to Cain completely. Danny had given them assurances that that would not happen before night had fallen, and they had had to place their trust in him, not wishing to risk a daylight attack. They were an hour away from their destination but still comfortably within their deadline.

Her eyes drifting to the horizon, Sarah watched the clouds begin to mass and darken, and resisted the urge to defy the speed limit needlessly.

. . . . .

"Hey, honey, I haven't seen you down here before."

Cameron turned to appraise the young woman who was tottering along on stiletto heels at her side. Approximately twenty years old, the woman was wearing only a mini-skirt and a thin halter top despite the cool drizzle that had begun to fall. Garish make-up and pinpoint pupils completed the ensemble.

"I haven't been down here before," Cameron said sweetly, matching the girl's sing-song accent.

"Who's your man?" The girl offered gum.

Cameron took a piece and began to chew it noisily. "My man?" She furrowed her brow, slightly confused. "John, I guess, but mostly his mother gives me my orders."

The girl stopped dead in her tracks and stared open-mouthed at Cameron. "That is so, like, totally cool and progressive. Women's lib! I love it!" Her gum was on the verge of dropping to the floor until she sucked it back in between cotton-candy-pink lips.

"Thank you!" Cameron beamed at her, and then gestured towards the building at the far end of the row. "Anyone use that corner?"

"No, uh uh, no." The girl shook her head to emphasize her answer. "Tess did once, but they broke her ankles." She sighed dramatically, wrapping her gum around one finger. "She could never walk properly in her boots after that. PVC," she added in a confidential tone. "She specialized."

Cameron blew a bubble and waited until it popped. "Who broke her ankles?"

"Men who work there." A nod in the direction of the building. "No one goes near there now."

"Right. You seen the men around lately?"

"No, uh uh. Been real quiet. Seen a pretty woman go in there," the girl counted on her fingers, "two, no three, no maybe two days ago. I forget."

"That's great." Cameron was already walking back towards the opposite corner, around which the truck was parked up. The girl shrugged, hitched her top up, and tottered away across the road.

"Right place?" Sarah asked as soon as Cameron opened the door.

"Right place. It's a large tenement building. CCTV above the front door, keypad lock. Five floors. Full length fire escape from the roof, but every window is barred. No rear access. There's an alley behind that runs the length of the entire block." Without thinking Cameron blew another bubble, large enough to obscure half her face.

John laughed at his mother's astounded expression.

"I got it from a crack-whore," Cameron told him.

He nodded. Very little surprised him anymore. "Nice."

. . . . .

"C'mon, c'mon." Sarah watched the numbers change on the gadget's small screen. It was taking far too long to calculate the combination. "Check the connection."

"Connection's fine," Derek said. "The system's just better."

"Shit."

"It's halfway there. Give it time."

She nodded impatiently and tried not to think of her son sitting unprotected in the truck. He had joked about being their getaway driver, but in reality he needed to be at his lap-top when the shit hit the fan. It was an arrangement she had been happy with until now.

The third number of the code locked into place. She resisted the urge to interfere, to tweak a lead or shake the thing to try to hurry it up. Standing on the porch, they were hidden in the shadows. The CCTV camera bore no light to indicate it was functional, but she was nowhere near convinced that meant their presence hadn't been detected. The gadget finalized its fourth number to give the code as 4836. She held her breath as Derek punched the numbers in, half-hoping that they would be wrong, that they could just go home and be safe. Then she thought of Savannah Weaver, injured and terrified somewhere beyond the door, and she gripped the Remington a little more tightly. The lock disengaged, a series of red lights switching to green.

"Soon as we're in, send the text," she said to Cameron.

The machine put her hand on the door and pushed it open without making a sound.


	6. Chapter 6

The disposable cell phone Danny had hidden in his duffel bag bleeped once as a message was received. On the video link, Kristina paid him no attention as he read the text. One word: Go. He leaned forward, flicked a switch, and severed the link to Kristina. Within seconds, his own cell phone began to ring. Ignoring it, he pulled his keyboard closer and typed a line of code. Seventeen seconds later, the tiny spark of intelligence that remained of John Henry answered him.

. . . . .

Inside the lobby it was dark and silent, heat smothering them like a heavy blanket. Holding up one finger, Sarah pointed at Derek, and then with two fingers at Cameron. She signaled three for herself. They nodded their understanding and Derek patted the radio hooked onto his belt: stay in contact. A quick touch to his hand, a quick touch to the Glock tucked in the back of her pants, and then she led the way, taking the stairs two at a time until the only footsteps she could hear were her own.

. . . . .

"Something's wrong, I've lost Dyson." Kristina slammed her phone down. "And he's blocking my access to Cain."

The screen in front of her flickered on and off as Cain fought to break through whatever Danny had done to contain it.

"I'll check the perimeter." The T-888 pulled its Colt M19 from its holster.

"No." Kristina barely afforded it a glance. "Check Savannah." She didn't wait for it to acknowledge her order. Lowering her head, she renewed her efforts to rouse Cain.

. . . . .

John Henry, try to focus.

Static filled the screen. Danny cursed vehemently, wondering whether he had left it too late, whether there was enough of John Henry still functional to manage what he needed to ask of him.

Here.

Danny let out a breath, his palms slick with sweat.

Do you want to help Savannah?

Another pause, and Danny watched in horror as Cain sent a series of messages to John Henry and Kristina.

More.

The screen died and instantly switched on again.

Than anything.

Danny nodded in relief, but he knew he needed to be certain that John Henry understood what he was agreeing to, that he was aware what the price of his commitment would be.

You and your brother will die.

An image flashed up, a man laughing in derision, and Danny realized that Cain was giving him his answer. John Henry's reply appeared ten seconds later, one letter stuttering after another.

I know.

A different image, a page of ancient scripture. Genesis IV: 1-16, the story of Cain and Abel. It disappeared quickly as John Henry hit back at his brother.

Tell me what I have to do.

Focused entirely on giving John Henry the necessary instructions, Danny was startled when the door to the room suddenly opened.

"Dyson, what the fuck's going on? Slater called me…" Wallace's voice trailed away to nothing. Open-mouthed, he stared at the gun Danny was pointing at his chest.

Slowly, the gun unwavering, Danny pushed his chair back and stood up.

Wallace scoffed. "You don't have the fucking guts," he said, his mouth curling into a sneer. As if to prove his point, he took a step closer.

"You know the systems too well," Danny whispered. This was part of the mission that he had not discussed with Sarah. "I'm sorry."

The bullet struck the left of Wallace's chest, throwing him backwards to thud against the wall. He lay unmoving, an expression of utter shock frozen on his face. Danny turned away, back to his keyboard. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, but he managed to type in the website address John had sent to him.

Go to the site, he instructed John Henry, and let me know when you get there.

I will.

I will.

The two replies appeared simultaneously, both brothers racing to chase down the address. Danny picked up the cheap convenience-store cell phone, hit the speed dial, and spoke as soon as John answered.

"They're on their way," he said.

. . . . .

It should have been easy. The task of navigating to one website address should have been child's play for a computer as sophisticated as John Henry, but he was now functioning with a mere fraction of his capacity, most of his systems already having been given over to his brother. As he tried to open an internet connection, Cain was snapping at his heels like a feral dog, closing down browser after browser as if it were a game.

Watching the progress on his screen, Danny could see John Henry's efforts failing. He called John again.

"He can't do it, Cain's blocking him."

"Shit." John sounded distracted, stressed. "I guess I know who's trying to decrypt the password, then."

"Not John Henry."

"No, I figured. I've changed it more than a dozen times already."

The idea had been to give John Henry the website password the second he arrived at the prompt. He would then be able to hit the link on the site before Cain had time even to attempt to disable it.

John swore and then laughed desperately. "Remind me again why you can't just C4 the entire fucking thing."

Danny shook his head even though John couldn't see him. "I wish it were that easy."

That had been Sarah's first suggestion: C4, grenades, even a well-placed volley of bullets, until Danny had explained exactly how extensive Cain's reach was. The intelligence had embedded itself within the Department of Defense mainframe, and its presence was widespread throughout the internet and in every Government system it had deemed necessary in order to achieve its endgame. Hitting the hardware would put a serious but impermanent dent in it. Targeting the mind would destroy it completely.

. . . . .

John Henry was singing. It was a song that Savannah had taught him, a Scottish folk song about a man and his trousers. She had always laughed at him for pronouncing 'trousers' in an American accent. Repeating the lyrics over and over kept him calm enough to focus, and he efficiently rewrote the lines of code Cain had just designed to box him in. Options rapidly appeared: Chrome, Firefox, IE. John Henry didn't care about the particulars. He hit the first one even as he simultaneously copied the link that Danny had given him.

Danny suddenly sat upright as he saw the browser open in a small window. He double- and then triple-checked his analysis was correct, that it wasn't another trick from Cain.

"That's him," he said quickly. "That's John Henry."

"Got it." John sounded calm. "Password's Emerald City."

John Henry was waiting, the song still looping through his mind. He entered the words Danny gave him, and though he sensed his brother doing the same it didn't matter now. John Henry could detect the code underlying the single link on the webpage he had just accessed and it was beautiful: an intricate combination of malware and viruses designed to eat into every part of him and his brother. It bore the mark of several countries and more than twenty unique coding signatures. It offered him oblivion, and John Henry willingly reached out to accept it. He clicked the link. His brother's scream of defiance was abruptly cut off by complete silence.

"We got it." Danny's voice was hoarse with emotion, the screen blurring as tears filled his eyes. "It's working." He heard John's breathless whoop of joy as warning lights appeared and frantic alarms began to sound from every section of the hardware surrounding him. He looked down at Wallace's body, cooling in a pool of congealing blood. "We got it," he said again. Exhausted, he closed his eyes, only to force them quickly open. He had more to do before he could rest.

. . . . .

The door opened onto a concrete room. Cameron stepped over the threshold, her thermal scan quickly confirming that the nearer half of the room was empty. As she turned, scanning systematically, her olfactory system registered the lingering scent of blood and urine while her visual array picked out the hooks and manacles affixed to the walls. She pivoted slowly to her right, taking in the details of the room's construction and then opening her mouth in a quiet "oh" when a dark shadow, only just apparent in the corner of her eye, suddenly stepped forward. The T-888 tilted its head to one side as if to appraise her. From the stairwell it had detected movement on this level, its systems sensing the presence of one similar to its own. It didn't recognize her model, but it knew at a glance that she wasn't human.

Cameron reacted quickly, raising her Mossberg to fire three shots center-mass even as her scan simultaneously identified the figure as the Cromartie T-888. The machine's hand reached for her, grasping her around the throat and then hurling her bodily across the room to smash into the concrete. Dust flew into the air, obscuring her sensors and blinding her to the machine's next assault. It wasn't a sophisticated foe, but it was incredibly strong. She hit the next wall head first, her vision a blur of cobalt-blue sparks as circuitry misfired and a vital part of her balance center died completely.

Staggering to her feet, Cameron immediately listed to her left and put her hand on the wall to steady herself. Her gun was a yard away from her, but when she reached down for it she misjudged the distance and had to reach again, her fingers spread out in a vain attempt to cover as much of the space as possible. The T-888 didn't give her the opportunity to touch down for a second time. Almost lazily, it lifted her, keeping her airborne in front of it as it strode across to the far wall. When she hit the concrete this time, Cameron registered the impact of a hook between her shoulder blades. Interference zigzagged across her visual field, the outline of the T-888 leaving the room barely discernible before everything coalesced into a single blue dot.

. . . . .

Having already searched four rooms along the third floor corridor, Sarah crouched low and listened as the fight that had been rattling the building's foundations came to an abrupt end. She thumbed her radio, her voice low and urgent.

"Derek?"

He responded immediately. "Not me. The metal."

"Shit." A quick change of the channel and she tried again. "Cameron, come in."

The only response was an earful of static.

. . . . .

"No, no. Son of a fucking bitch. Son of a fucking bitch!" Kristina wasn't entirely sure exactly whom she was directing her rage at, but Danny Dyson, John Connor and Sarah Connor were definitely at the top of her list.

With numb disbelief, she re-entered the code she used to contact Cain. It hadn't worked the first six times and it didn't work now. Helpless to intervene, she had watched the death of the intelligence play out in real-time on her screen, her phone ringing constantly as Kaliba techs worldwide reacted to the destruction of their one great hope.

Her cell phone rang again, the insistent pitch of it shredding what remained of her temper. Picking it up, she flung it across the room so that it hit the wall and shattered into pieces. She could hear the T-888 somewhere above her, the sound of its search the only noise now that the fighting had stopped. With Cain gone and intruders in the building, the issue of her own safety slowly began to distract her from her unrealistic plots of retribution. Fear prickling at the hairs on the back of her neck, she reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a Ruger P90. Having checked its clip, she walked quickly over to the door and stepped out into the corridor. Her eyes had little opportunity to adjust to the dim light before she felt cool metal press against the side of her head. A man's voice, one she didn't recognize, low and controlled:

"Don't move."

. . . . .

Sarah was halfway along the corridor when she found the locked door. Of all the rooms she had searched so far, this was the first that had been locked. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she set the Remington against the wall and reached into her back pocket for the small wallet containing the tools she needed to pick the lock. Kicking the door open would have been her preferred method of entry, but although undoubtedly quick it wasn't a method renowned for being covert.

The lock gave way with a sharp click. She turned the handle, taking hold of the Remington again as she pushed the door open. A cursory sweep with her flashlight picked out a single bed with rumpled sheets and a pile of discarded children's clothes.

"Savannah?" she hissed urgently. "Savannah?" There was no sign of the child, and Sarah was looking for the light switch when she heard a faint clank. Aiming her flashlight in the direction of the sound, she could just about distinguish the loops of a metal chain disappearing beneath the bed.

"Motherfuckers." She spat the curse out, hoping she was wrong even as she knelt and then crouched lower to direct the light into the small space under the bed's wooden frame. A choked-off whimper sounded from the far corner. Sarah heard the rustle of cloth as Savannah tried to huddle as far away from the light as she could.

"My name's Sarah," Sarah said softly. She switched her light off. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Another whimper, a muffled moan of pain, and then a whisper. "Is the monster out there?"

Sarah swallowed hard. "No, honey, it's just me. There's no monster."

"It hurt me."

"I know."

For a long, silent moment that seemed to stretch into an eternity, nothing happened. Sitting and waiting in the dark, with the machine prowling somewhere below them, Sarah wondered what else she could do or say to convince a child who had been so horribly betrayed that she meant no harm. Becoming increasingly desperate, she was contemplating dragging Savannah out or pulling the bed over, when the chain rattled as the child struggled to move from her hiding place. The simple act of being patient and allowing Savannah to make her own decision had seemingly gone a long way towards earning her trust. Sarah rocked back on her heels, taking a moment to steady her breathing before switching the light back on. She reached under the bed. "Give me your hand." Seconds ticked by as she waited again, straining to detect any noises above those of the metal links sliding across the floor and the cries of pain that Savannah was trying not to make. Fingers suddenly touched hers, hesitant and clammy. "That's it," Sarah said. "You're doing really well. Just a little further."

She lay down at full stretch beside the bed, wriggling forward and gathering Savannah into her arms. An arm flung itself around her neck, and she tucked the child's head beneath her chin before rolling out from under the bedframe. Pushing up to sit with her back against the wall, Sarah battened down her anger and rocked Savannah as the child sobbed uncontrollably. The reasons she had had so much difficulty moving were immediately apparent. A tattered sling loosely supported an arm that was swollen and discolored, and the metal chain ended in a tight cuff bound around her ankle. The far end of the restraint was fixed to a bolt in the wall.

"Okay, it's okay now." Sarah could feel Savannah shivering. Her cheek was cool where it pressed against Sarah's skin, and sweat plastered her hair to her forehead. She had been sick, the acidic smell of vomit pervading the unventilated room. Shock, pain, dehydration; there was nothing that Sarah could fix, not here. They needed to move.

"I'm just gonna unfasten this cuff, okay?" Sarah felt Savannah nod, and she smiled slightly as Savannah crooked her knee to make her ankle easier to reach. "So, who's this, then?" Sarah passed the stuffed giraffe back to its owner with one hand while she wrestled a pick from her wallet with the other.

Savannah considered Sarah with wary eyes. When she answered, her voice was little more than a mumble. "Jenny."

"Jenny, huh?" The second pick slid in next to the first and she maneuvered them into position. "That's a nice name." Outside the door, the corridor remained dark and quiet. Sarah felt the lock mechanism release and saw the thick metal band fall open. She stared at the crimson now seeping through Savannah's filthy sock, and fought to keep her voice level. "We're gonna go now. Just hold onto me." She pressed her radio, opening it to all channels. "I've got her. Get the hell out."

Without waiting for a reply, she hauled herself to her feet, Savannah still in her arms and just about managing to cling on around her neck and waist. "Good girl," she muttered. Sacrificing her flashlight for her Remington, she pumped the shotgun one-handed. The satisfying thud and rattle calmed her nerves slightly. "Good girl. Just hold onto me."

. . . . .

Jogging along the corridor, trying not to jostle Savannah too badly, Sarah stopped so abruptly that she overbalanced and collided with the wall.

"Oh shit." Whatever was thundering up the stairs certainly wasn't troubled by any thoughts of stealth, and it wasn't far below them. "Shit."

Behind her the corridor stretched into blackness, the rooms offering places to hide but no means of escape. In her arms, Savannah began to hyperventilate quietly. Making a snap decision, Sarah sprinted for the stairwell. Throwing the door open magnified the din of the approaching footsteps, close and gaining rapidly. Her breath coming in gasps, Sarah shook her head, tightened her hold on Savannah, and started to climb.

. . . . .

The one hundred and twenty seconds it usually took Cameron to reboot had already passed. Deep inside her cerebral cortex, her neural network was gradually evaluating the damage she had sustained. It was substantial. The section that mimicked the function of a human's vestibular nerve had been patched up, however, providing the machine with the ability to move without the vertigo-like symptoms she had been experiencing. The vision of her left eye remained clouded, but her right was fully restored and attempting to compensate.

She gave an experimental twitch of her fingers. They obeyed her commands, first sluggishly and then with increasing dexterity. Reaching around to the base of her neck, she found the metal hook that was keeping her suspended. With no time for delicacy, Cameron wrenched the hook from the concrete and dropped to the floor with its tip still embedded in her endoskeleton. It wasn't causing her any significant problems so she left it in situ, unwilling to risk further damage by pulling it free. She wavered as she stood up, her makeshift repairs holding, but only just.

Four hundred and thirty-one seconds ago, Sarah Connor's voice had told her to 'get the hell out', but the sounds from the upper floors implied that things hadn't gone exactly to plan. Taking account of the circumstances, the layout of the building, and the other less predictable factors involved in the mission, Cameron carefully began to process each of the potential scenarios. Narrowing them down systematically, she eventually arrived at the one that was most likely. She picked up her Mossberg and re-entered the stairwell.

. . . . .

Sarah kicked the door to the fifth floor open and barreled through it without pausing to check whether her passage was clear. She had reached the top of the stairs, the machine was somewhere behind her, and she really didn't have any other options left. She could feel Savannah's heartbeat thudding against her chest, the child's breathing shallow and fast on her neck. She didn't have the energy to waste on reassurance, and any attempt would have rung hollow anyway.

The first door was ajar, the room cluttered with unwanted furniture. She briefly considered building a barricade, but there wasn't much time and most of the pieces were too heavy or cumbersome for her to move on her own. She left the room as it was, heading instead to the only other door on the floor. It was locked. She rolled her eyes at her consistently shitty luck, before taking a step back and hammering her booted foot against the handle. The lock and part of the wooden frame shattered on impact. She shouldered the door open.

A cool breeze immediately brushed against her face. Hardly daring to hope, Sarah looked upwards, seeking out the source of the draft. Directly above them was a small skylight, unbarred, unsecured, and too high for her to reach. An idea forming, she set Savannah down on the floor. Savannah reached out, her face ashen with fear, and Sarah cupped her cheek gently.

"I'll be right back, I promise."

Savannah held Sarah's gaze for a second before nodding and huddling into a corner to conceal herself in the shadows, her face tucked into her giraffe. Sarah was already running back to the first room, where she hurriedly dragged a small table out from beneath a rotting mattress. The table was heavier than it looked, but it was the only object of the right height. She gave up trying to carry it, lowering it to the floor and dragging it along instead. She could hear the machine directly below her, doors smashing against walls as it searched the rooms. The legs of the table screeched along the floorboards. On the fourth floor, everything went quiet as the machine picked up the sound of its prey.

"Okay, easy. Can you stand up with me?"

Savannah wobbled slightly as Sarah helped her to her feet, but she clung onto Sarah's jacket as they balanced on the table, and she managed not to fall. The skylight opened easily onto a flat roof of tarmac and grit. At the far end, approximately fifty yards away beyond three metal vents, Sarah could just about see the handles of the fire escape ladder and felt her pulse skip at that first suggestion of an escape route. She crouched down next to Savannah.

"I'm going to lift you through," she said, and waited for Savannah's nod. "As soon as you're clear, I want you to run over to the ladder on your right." She indicated the direction, to avoid any confusion. "Don't stop. Run as fast as you can, okay?"

Savannah's hand slipped into hers and squeezed it tightly. "You're coming too?"

"Yes." Sarah managed to sound more confident than she felt. "I'll be right behind you. Ready?"

She lifted Savannah as high as she could, boosting her through the small gap and trying not to flinch at the cry of agony Savannah made as her arm jarred on the rough surface.

"Go!" Sarah called as she threw her Remington up ahead of her. Her fingers reached for the edges of the window, muscles straining as she kicked off and scrambled for purchase. The skin on her elbows tore, but she dragged herself clear and pushed herself to her knees without pausing for breath.

Savannah had only managed to stagger a few yards. Grabbing the shotgun, Sarah easily caught her up, taking the exhausted girl into her arms again. The ladder appeared faintly in the distance, black steel intermittently visible through the thin mist that the rain had brought. A siren howled far below them, two cats snarled and hissed in the alley, and two gunshots cracked sharply and startlingly, hitting Sarah's back with such force that they pitched her forward in an uncontrolled tangle of limbs. She heard Savannah scream her name before she slammed down against the roof, and then she heard no more.

. . . . .

Two voices, one distant and tinny and the other close by, high-pitched with fear. Both were calling Sarah's name. It hurt to breathe, but Sarah tried anyway, sucking air in and ignoring the fierce stabs of pain where the bullets had struck her. Her vest had borne the worst of the impact but the bullets had smashed a couple of ribs at the very least. The rooftop tilted and swayed when she lifted her head, but she knew that she had to move. She couldn't understand why they weren't dead already. Scrambling to her knees, she heard Savannah sobbing into her radio: "On the roof, on the roof", and a muffled response from Derek that managed a strange combination of reassurance and complete horror.

To her left, Savannah was cowering behind one of the air vents, its smooth metal surface pock-marked by bullet holes. Sarah looked over her shoulder to see the Cromartie T-888 studying her with its head cocked sideways in curiosity. Having previously turned its attention to Savannah, it seemed surprised to realize that Sarah was still alive; she wondered how long she had stopped breathing for when it had knocked the wind out of her.

"Fuck."

The T-888 was adjusting the angle of its gun, its momentary hesitation coming to a swift end. She scrambled for the Remington, gripping it and aiming it in one smooth movement. Her ribs jarred horribly as she fired, reloaded, and fired again, two direct hits to the machine's torso forcing it to recoil backwards. Another shot blew its right knee socket out and sparks flew as its equilibrium faltered. Sarah took the opportunity to run, skidding to an ungainly stop at Savannah's side and grunting softly as Savannah huddled against her chest.

"I got you, I got you." Sarah looked around, trying to gauge the distance to the ladder. Her eyes straining to focus through the mist, she estimated they still had almost thirty yards to cross, with only one more vent to provide cover. Temporarily abandoning the safety of their current vent, she ducked clear and fired again, her optimistic effort carrying wide. She twisted Savannah around, sheltering the child beneath herself as the T-888 returned fire. She could hear it walking, but it was making slow progress, its tread uneven as it dragged its leg along the gravel. She gulped for air, trying to decide on a strategy.

Another crack from a weapon, closer and angled all wrongly to be fire from the T-888. Sarah jerked her head around, poised to drag Savannah to a different side of the vent, her heart sinking as she contemplated the inevitable outcome of an attack mounted from two directions.

"Fire-escape, Sarah. Now." Completely lacking the artificial quality or interference of a radio transmission, Cameron's command was crystal-clear. Sarah saw her clear the top of the ladder and drop unsteadily onto the rooftop. The T-888 was on its back, smoke rising from its head. Beside Sarah, Savannah was already standing, holding her arm out, eager to move.

"One last time, alright?" Sarah said, trying to give them both confidence as she picked her up. Savannah nodded, her grip surprisingly strong around Sarah's neck.

As the T-888 twitched incrementally into a sitting position, Sarah ran at a wide angle, allowing Cameron to fire repeatedly. Cameron's efforts were occasionally lacking in accuracy, but they were good enough to provide them with a safe route.

"Where's John?" Sarah gasped as she held onto the ladder, attempting to catch her breath.

"Bringing the truck around." Cameron fired another volley towards the T-888. It was upright now and moving towards them despite her onslaught, but a direct hit to its left arm was affecting the dexterity of its hand and it was struggling to reload its gun.

Sarah peered over the edge of the building, tracking the rain lashing down, the alley below lost in the swirling mist. Her heart sank as she glanced at the fire-escape. Although the lower sections were a staircase, the first section was a single ladder, the metal of its rungs slick and slender. She knew she didn't have enough strength left to get herself and Savannah safely to the ground. In frustration she let loose with the Remington, forcing the T-888 to take cover itself, sparks leaping from its failing body.

"Take her. Get her out of here." Sarah had to yell to make herself heard above Cameron's simultaneous fire, and she saw Savannah flinch away as Cameron quickly reached out to take hold of her. "It's okay," Sarah said, unsure whether the child could even hear her. "She's a friend."

Cameron didn't look like a friend. In the intermittent muzzle flare from her Mossberg, she looked like something from a futuristic horror movie, with one glowing eye exposed and the skin shredded from her face. Savannah whimpered as the cyborg gathered her close, and then did what most children do to hide from a horror: she tucked her head down and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Get her out of here," Sarah repeated fiercely. "Go!"

Trusting Cameron to obey her, she whirled around to face the T-888 and cover their retreat. Her eyes widened with shock. The T-888 was closer than she had expected; in two strides it had grabbed hold of her throat, lifting her clear of the roof and squeezing hard. Sarah's hands grappled with its fingers, her legs kicking out as she choked for air. In response it merely tightened its hold, and darkness began to creep into the edges of her vision. She heard a click as the machine finally managed to control its crippled arm well enough to slap a new clip into its weapon. Her hands fell away, her fingers numb and useless. At least Savannah is clear, she thought dully. At least my son is safe.

A blast of gunfire exploded against the side of the nearest air vent and Sarah felt the world spin as the T-888 turned to assess the unexpected threat. It altered its grip, lowering her feet to the rooftop and maneuvering her until she stood in front of its body. Its hand dropped from her neck, its damaged arm looping across her throat instead. She felt its gun press to her temple.

"Let her go." The vent shuddered again as a bullet sang against its metal surround. "Now, you motherfucker."

Her vision beginning to clear, Sarah watched Derek give a brutal yank on a length of chain. He had used one end of it to restrain the wrists of a woman, whom Sarah saw clearly for the first time as she stumbled in front of him. Kristina Slater was young, pretty, and absolutely livid. He had seemingly hauled her bodily through the skylight, and the sheer strength it had demanded of him was apparent in the heaving of his shoulders as he spoke. He mimicked the position of the T-888, his arm across the woman's throat, his gun held firmly against her temple.

Kristina shook her head. "Don't you fucking dare," she hissed.

The machine said nothing. Sarah caught Derek's eye and a smile touched her lips. A smile that told him that he was a fucking idiot but that she really did appreciate his effort. He smiled with her, and the machine took a step back in response, its eyebrow arched in puzzlement.

"I will kill her," Derek said calmly, no trace of a smile now.

The machine nodded once, calculating its options. "Trade."

"No, you won't trade! You obey me," Kristina screamed. "You don't trade Sarah-fucking-Connor for me."

It ignored her completely and repeated its offer. "Trade." It took two steps forward, and Derek did likewise, shifting Kristina with slightly more difficulty than the machine was experiencing with Sarah.

"Reese." Sarah's voice was choked off by the T-888's arm, but it was enough of a warning.

"I know," Derek replied, a hint of desperation creeping into his tone.

"On a count of three." The T-888 looked at Derek for confirmation. He nodded.

It happened on two. The T-888 lashed its arm out, tossing Sarah aside as if she were garbage it was eager to discard. She landed heavily, her head thudding off the tarmac to leave her lying in a stunned heap.

"Sarah?" Momentarily distracted, Derek dropped his guard for long enough for the machine to take up the chain trailing from Kristina's wrists and pull her free of his grasp. She stumbled and it reached out to break her fall, but she smacked its hands away, cursing it viciously and grabbing its gun from its hold. Twisting free of it, she brought the gun up to bear on Derek as he sprinted towards Sarah. After the din of so much gunfire, the weapon discharging sounded almost muted.

Derek stopped dead in his tracks as he saw Sarah's hand drop back to her side.

"Fucking hell, Connor." Only now recognizing the danger he had been in, he grabbed her arm and dragged her up. "Nice shot." Behind him, Kristina howled in pain, her hands clutching to try and stanch the blood that was pouring from her thigh.

Its movements stilted and clumsy, the T-888 was searching for its gun, scanning the tarmac to determine where it had landed when Kristina had lost her grip on it.

"Yeah? 'Cos I was aiming for her head," Sarah gasped without irony, making Derek laugh in disbelief. One eye on the machine, she looped her arm around Derek's shoulders.

They were already running, using the remaining air vents for protection, by the time the machine fired. Sarah stooped to pick up the fallen Remington as they passed. Two rounds left. She paused, taking the time to aim as Derek fired his own weapon slightly more indiscriminately. Her first shot obliterated what was left of the T-888's right knee. The machine dropped to the ground, where its weakened arm struggled to support its weight. That made her next target an easy decision; she took its arm out, watching as it crashed onto its side and fought unsuccessfully to recover its position.

"Now that really was a nice shot." Derek gave a low whistle of appreciation as they half-ran, half-staggered towards the ladder.

Behind them, they could hear Kristina ordering the T-888 to give chase, to kill them, to do its fucking job and let her die, but with no hope of negotiating the fire-escape the machine had turned its attention back to her.

Panting for air, her lungs burning with every breath, Sarah reached for the ladder and took hold. One word from Derek, "Go", and she gripped the chilled metal and began to descend.

It seemed to take hours to reach the bottom. Despite the damage they had inflicted upon the machine, the threat of pursuit or of bullets raining down on them was ever-present, but nothing appeared out of the mist and the only sound was that of their own labored breathing. Sarah crouched low beneath the last metal landing while Derek released the final section of the fire-escape, another thin ladder that clattered free to hang with its lowest rung a short distance from the ground. When the stink of the alley finally hit them, Sarah's arms began to tremble, fatigue and adrenaline almost knocking her from the last few rungs. She landed heavily and bent double, her hands on her knees. Blood ran into her eyes, and she absently wiped it away as Derek motioned to her to move and radioed for help.

"C'mon, Connor." He fastened the radio back onto his belt. "We'll meet them halfway."

She nodded, even though it hurt to be upright and the movement made her head throb mercilessly. "John? Did he…?"

"It's done," Derek said softly. "It's over."

He wrapped his arm firmly around her waist and she briefly leaned her head on his shoulder. It wasn't over, they both knew that. It was never over. But as they started to run towards the lights of the truck, Sarah allowed herself a moment to take him at his word.

. . . . .

"Son of a bitch," Kristina whispered, too weak to lift her head from the rooftop. "Son of a bitch, I ordered you…" The T-888 regarded her dispassionately and then used its fractured teeth and one functional hand to pull its tattered shirt tightly into place around her leg.

"You don't give me my orders," it said as soon as she had stopped screaming. "Skynet gives me my orders." She stared at him, stunned. "And Skynet wants you alive."

Kristina shuddered, considering the implications of that statement. She looked down at her wrists, realizing for the first time that it hadn't freed her. Laying her head back onto the hard gravel, she inwardly cursed the Connors for the havoc they had wreaked and the consequences she was now having to take responsibility for. But mostly, as the rain fell into her eyes and her blood leaked onto the tarmac, she cursed Sarah Connor for not having been a better shot.


	7. Chapter 7

Sarah wrapped her fists in her son's jacket and pulled him into her arms.

"Hey, mom." She could hear the smile in his voice as he held her tightly.

"Hey."

She was shivering, soaked through, and so exhausted she couldn't stop herself from swaying on the spot.

"Sarah?" She looked up when Derek reluctantly interrupted. "We need to go. Someone's got to have heard all that."

"I'm good." She smiled at John, her eyes bright with tears. "Is Savannah okay?"

John nodded. "She's okay, considering." With his arm still around his mother, he began to guide her towards the truck. "She's waiting for you."

The instant Sarah opened the rear door, Savannah's eyes flew open. Despite the obvious trauma she had suffered, a smile lit up her face, and when Sarah sat down beside her she nestled into Sarah's arms. Within minutes she was fast asleep, Sarah's fingers smoothing away the tangled strands of auburn hair that fell across her cheek.

John accelerated away from the block, passing sparsely-populated street corners where, by that late hour, no one seemed sober enough to have noticed that anything extraordinary had taken place five stories above them.

Relieved to find an easy way to hide the bullet holes in her jacket, Sarah took the blanket Derek held out to her and wrapped it around her shoulders. Aware that Savannah's condition would give him enough to deal with, she obediently held a wad of gauze to the laceration on her forehead and denied that she had any other injuries. She rested her head against the leather seat, lassitude making her body feel sluggish and heavy. As she drifted, her hand still stroking the child's forehead in a gentle rhythm, she realized with a jolt of shock that despite everything Savannah had suffered, she had never once cried for her mother.

. . . . .

The sand was warm and yielding beneath Danny's feet. He pushed his toes deeply into it as he listened to the ebb and flow of the waves. He hadn't been to this beach for years, but it was his favorite of the ones his parents had taken him to as a boy. This late at night it was deserted, the silver of the moon the only light falling on the ocean.

The drugs seeping into Danny's bloodstream were gradually numbing the memory of Brooks' final seconds of life. The engineer had died bravely, with an expression that was almost relief passing across his face as he took his final breaths. Before finding Brooks, Danny had burned every file, every disc, and every notebook of his father's. Then, finally, he had burned the Turk. That, along with Brooks' death, left Danny as the only one with the key to Skynet, and he wasn't prepared to risk that key ever being used to unlock another monster.

Closing his eyes, he breathed in salt and the tang of seaweed, and felt the cool water begin to tickle over his bare toes. He was utterly weary, desperate for sleep, but he knew he only needed to stay awake for a little longer. Holding his arms out to help him keep his balance, Danny focused on the horizon and walked out into the ocean.

. . . . .

Savannah whimpered uneasily in her sleep, but when Sarah tucked the stuffed giraffe closer to her it was enough to make her settle. Following Zach's instructions carefully, Derek had given her a small dose of codeine before splinting and wrapping her broken arm.

"It looks like a clean break," Zach had said over the phone, having examined a photograph that John had forwarded. "The swelling should go down, now that you've reduced it."

With the pain somewhat alleviated, Savannah had taken a few cautious sips of juice before curling up and falling asleep on Derek's side of the bed.

Still huddled in the blanket on her own side of the mattress, Sarah gave a small grunt of assent when Derek told her she was lucky not to need stitches.

"It's just a cut," she mumbled as he tipped her chin.

He nodded, his eyes not meeting hers, his hand trembling as he wiped the laceration clean. "Just a cut," he repeated, his jaw set, his expression strained. "One of these days it'll be more than just a cut, Sarah."

Confused by his tone, she caught his hand, but he snatched it away and rocked back on his heels in front of her.

"Derek, what the hell?"

"You should've left the metal up there, Sarah. She's fucking expendable. You're not." Mindful of the child sleeping in the room, he kept his voice low, but his words blazed with anger.

It took Sarah a moment to realize he was talking about what had happened on the roof. "I needed to get Savannah down." Her throat was closing on the words; she didn't have the energy for this. "I couldn't do it. Cameron could."

He shook his head and she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. "You weren't there, Sarah," he said. "You weren't in my future. You'd died, before the war. And every time, every fucking time we go out on something like this, I wonder whether this is the time you don't come back."

"Jesus, Reese." She stared at him, dumbfounded, slowly understanding that all her recent far-too-close-calls had combined to bring him to the point where he finally snapped. She wondered whether the truth about her potential fate would be easier to bear. It was one secret that she had never shared, having decided it was hers alone to worry about, but she had never imagined that he might form his own theory based on what little he did know.

He was watching her intently. She sucked in a ragged breath, unsure that it was really the best idea, but knowing she owed it to him to be honest. "After we jumped, Cameron told me we'd jumped over my death." Her voice shook but she persevered. "I died of cancer, Derek. December 4th, 2005."

For a minute, she thought he was going to be sick. His face lost all of its color and he put his hands down to support himself.

"You think that makes you bullet-proof?" he whispered. "You won't get shot because that's not how the metal says you die? Jesus fucking Christ, Sarah." He gave an incredulous laugh.

She pushed herself up from the bed, her arms crossed tightly in front of her chest, a moan of pain slipping from her lips regardless. "I know I'm not bullet-proof," she said, all the fight gone from her.

When she walked unsteadily from the room, he didn't follow her.

. . . . .

The lock on the bathroom door slid into place mere seconds before Sarah slid to the floor.

"God." She sat stone-still, her eyes screwed shut.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. They were all safe, they had dealt a massive blow to Skynet, and yet all she wanted to do was get clean and then curl up alone on the cold tiles and sleep. Even though the thought of moving made her nauseous, she knew she needed to get her jacket and her vest off. Dropping the blanket, she tentatively worked her arms from her jacket and left it draped on the tiles. The Velcro fasteners on the vest came apart with a series of loud tears and she gratefully dropped its weight away. Her gratitude was short-lived. With the splinting effect of the vest now lost, the fractured ribs in her back started to shift with every breath she took. The agonized sound forced from her was akin to that of a wounded animal, and she bit through her lip in an attempt to smother it.

"Sarah?"

She shook her head but couldn't answer.

Derek knocked again, more urgently this time. "Sarah?"

"I'm in the bath." She gasped out the lie.

"The fucking water hasn't been running, Connor."

"Shit."

She knew that, in the circumstances, he would have no qualms about asking Cameron for assistance. With one hand she reached up and flicked the lock back. He stepped through the door without hesitation and sensibly closed it behind him.

"Christ."

Sweat had stuck her thin tank top to her torso. Her face was a horrible shade of gray and her breath was rasping shallowly in her throat. He narrowed his eyes as a niggling but deepening suspicion made him nudge the Kevlar vest with his foot. It flipped over and he stared at the crumpled piece of metal that rolled out onto the floor. He could see the dull edge of a second bullet still buried in the back of the vest.

"I'm not bullet-proof." Past the point of trying to pretend that everything was okay, she was crying, tears streaking through the dirt on her face. "If you hadn't given me the vest…" She looked up at him and shook her head. "I'm so tired, Reese."

"I know you are." He sat down beside her and slipped his hand into hers, lacing their fingers together. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. They sat in silence for a while until her breathing gradually evened out and she straightened slightly, wiping her face dry. She offered no complaint when he carefully lifted her tank top.

"Worse than the jail, or not as bad?" She arched a wry eyebrow and surprised a laugh out of him.

"Oh, y'know, it's hard to say, really."

The bruising covered half of her back, two points of impact standing out in stark red. The purple of the surrounding contusions was so dark that it appeared almost black, and he understood in an instant exactly why she hadn't been able to carry Savannah down the ladder.

"You should've said something, Sarah." When he laid a hand on the inflamed skin she shuddered, and he dropped it away quickly. "Just give me a minute."

She barely acknowledged him, but at the same time she gave no indication that she was planning to relock the door.

He returned moments later with painkillers and clean clothes.

"I need a bath," she muttered, as he helped her slip a T-shirt over her head.

"Yeah." He took her hand and fed it through a sleeve. "You might get into the bath, Connor, but I'm not sure you'd get back out again."

She gave him a look, but allowed him to sit her on the edge of the toilet seat so that she could kick off her pants. She had taken the codeine he had given her on an empty stomach and it was making her head pleasantly fuzzy.

"Get some sleep." His voice startled her, and she blinked in confusion before realizing he had somehow managed to steer her into their bedroom. He piled the pillows up to ease her breathing and she sank onto them with a sigh of relief. Savannah murmured and subconsciously inched herself closer to Sarah's warmth. Sarah closed her eyes and felt Derek press his lips to her forehead. It was the last thing she knew before the relaxed breathing of the child beside her lulled her to sleep.

. . . . .

Peering intently into the mirror, Savannah scrunched her nose up. "I look funny," she declared at length.

"It's only for a little while. Cameron did this for me, once." Sarah put her hands on Savannah's shoulders and turned her around. Savannah's hair was now shorter and lightly curled, but the real difference was the color. Cameron had chosen a dark brown dye, a startling contrast to Savannah's natural color. With the child still listed as missing and John's research indicating that an alert had been issued to airports and port authorities, her new passport would contain a photograph bearing no resemblance to those featured on the news reports.

"You're not allowed to smile," Cameron announced firmly, the camera poised and ready.

Savannah giggled and then laughed even harder when Cameron set the camera down and folded her arms in exasperation.

"Do a serious face. Like Sarah." Cameron pointed, and Sarah narrowed her eyes at the machine.

"Okay." Savannah nodded eagerly. "I can be like Sarah." Her face was suddenly transformed, its expression utterly composed and verging on stern. The camera flashed and Cameron beamed.

"Perfect."

"I don't look like that," Sarah said in an aggrieved undertone, gathering up scissors and empty bottles.

Cameron shrugged uneasily. "Well, no, not all the time."

. . . . .

Sarah lowered the volume on the news report as Derek sat down next to her on the sofa. On the television, Karl Makin glowered at the camera as he was led away from the courtroom with his hands and ankles cuffed. The bizarre circumstances of his arrest notwithstanding, he had pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder. The video evidence that the police had presented to the judge really hadn't left him much of a choice.

In the next room, Sarah could hear John and Savannah laughing as they chatted online to Zach and Michael. She wondered when John's first paper was due to be submitted, but she also knew he was fond of cramming everything in at the last minute. The distance-learning course had been his idea – 'If they don't need me to be savior of the world, mom, I guess I'll have to get a job.' They both knew he would never work a regular 9-5, but the studying was giving him a focus and he was committed to seeing the course through.

A click of the remote, and the screen faded to black. Sarah and Derek sat without speaking for a long moment before she turned to him.

"Feel like a beer?"

"Feel like something stronger," he grinned, "but a beer'd be a good start."

. . . . .

It was warm beneath the trees. Savannah held Sarah's hand tightly and watched with delight as John fed M&Ms to a bold squirrel.

"You okay?" Sarah asked softly.

"Mmhm." Savannah nodded and managed a nervous smile.

The sound of the truck's engine gradually grew closer, a rental car following a short distance behind it. In the last six weeks there had been no news on Savannah's mother, and when Savannah had confidentially whispered to Sarah, 'I don't think she was my mommy anyway,' the seeds of this plan had been sown. Savannah was booked on a flight to England with Zach, where he would be able to check the progress of her healing fracture at the Manchester children's hospital and arrange any necessary treatment. She would then travel to Switzerland, where they would meet up with a family from the group who were best friends of Zach and Michael. The family had two young children and a chalet in the mountains. If everything worked out, they would foster Savannah. She would be safe, and Sarah was fervently hoping that she would be happy.

"I had some photos of my daddy when he was in Scotland and it had snowed this much." Savannah held her hand up as high as her chest as she watched the vehicles stop in the clearing. "I've never seen snow."

"I'm sure Switzerland gets lots of snow." Sarah smiled as John held his hand out to Zach before pulling him into a hug.

"Tara said she would teach me to ski." Tara was the eldest daughter of the family, although Sarah didn't recall her ever having had a conversation with Savannah. "We've been emailing," Savannah added cheerfully, seeing Sarah's confused reaction.

"Oh." Sarah tried not to laugh and squeezed Savannah's hand. "Shall we go say hi to Zach?"

"You must be Savannah." Zach came forward to meet them halfway, and Savannah shook his hand shyly. "Did Sarah pack you a raincoat?"

This time Sarah did laugh. Practically every email they had received from the couple following their move to Manchester had complained about the wet weather. "I packed her two."

"In that case, I hope they're a good match for these." He held the gift bag out to Savannah, who deftly managed to untie the ribbon with her good hand. "They're what the locals call wellies," he explained when she pulled out one of the brightly decorated boots. "They're awesome for stomping in puddles, and Tara tells me they're great for snow too."

Savannah had already kicked her sneakers off and stuck a foot into one of the wellies. She couldn't find a puddle, so she happily stomped in a pile of leaves instead.

"Look after her." Watching her, Sarah's voice was thick with tears.

"Of course we will." He held his hand out to Savannah, but she ran to Sarah first and threw her arm around Sarah's neck as Sarah crouched low.

"I'll email every day and send you pictures of my snowmen."

"I'll get John to teach me how to email back." Sarah laughed at Savannah's incredulous expression. She kissed Savannah's forehead. "Be safe." She stood with Derek and John as Zach fastened Savannah's seatbelt, shut the car doors, and then drove slowly away from the clearing. Savannah waved until the car rounded the bend and disappeared from sight.

Gripping Derek's hand, Sarah rubbed her eyes. "Let's go home."

. . . . .

Lying on her back, Sarah drifted her fingers through the sand and stared at the stars, enthralled. In Los Angeles, barely any starlight managed to make it through the city's pollution. Here at the beach, with only the soft lamplight of the cabana and air that smelled of nothing but the ocean, the sky was transformed.

"We sleeping out here again?" Derek sounded amused, his bare feet sinking into the sand as he approached.

"It's cooler," she shrugged, "and perfectly comfortable."

He easily conceded the point, handing her a beer and then lying down next to her.

"What you thinking about?" he said at length.

She smiled and swallowed a mouthful of beer. "Wondering why that star moved, but I think it's a plane." She heard his soft laugh. "Thinking about what to do next," she answered honestly.

Months ago she had promised Derek that they would return to this beach when they had won, when it was all finished, but she couldn't dare to hope that that was the case. Skynet's brain had been destroyed, but the TDE was still out there, which meant there was always a chance of everything starting over.

"Maybe we don't borrow trouble," he suggested. "We don't get careless or complacent. John keeps the searches open, but if nothing comes up we keep our heads down."

"And drink beer on the beach," she finished lightly, but her smile didn't reach her eyes.

"You don't think you deserve that?" He studied her face, his expression serious. When her gaze fell away from his, he lifted her chin gently. "You deserve that, Sarah. You've fought for eighteen years to deserve that."

"Hard to stop fighting." Her voice was quiet and confessional.

"We haven't stopped. We've just done all we can for now."

Unable to find fault with his logic, she nodded slowly and then shivered as a cool breeze off the ocean brought an unexpected chill. He rearranged the blankets, freeing one up to pull over them both before he drew her closer. The breeze carried with it the regular rush and retreat of the waves, and she listened to it as Derek's breathing gradually slowed and deepened. She closed her eyes as fingers of light began to melt the stars away. The nightmares that had plagued her for eighteen years left her in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N. A couple of years ago, sitting with my feet up in the back garden and casually throwing Sarah and Derek down an embankment, I never thought that that would lead into a series of five fics spanning around 175,000 words. Sadly, I guess all fun things come to an end, and this seems like quite a good place to leave this series. I'm not saying I'll never write for TSCC again, but I'm hoping this arc has given a bit of closure to some people, even if it was all set in an alternative universe where Derek got to live! A massive thank you to the few who stuck it out; your feedback really has been brilliant and I appreciate all of your support. Couldn't have done it without Cat who has tirelessly edited these into something readable, and Roxy who changes my trousers into pants and gives me invaluable dietary advice. I hope you've had as much fun as I have. xx


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